These are the great statues to inspire the late Queen's memorial

Telegraph

4 days ago

Why, since antiquity, has the image of a figure on horseback symbolised power? The answer's simple: this stirring sight suggests wealth and status, as well as military prowess, and at once conveys an individual's smooth, skilful ability to control a potentially unruly mount – and, by extension, populace.
It implies poise and self-command, and hints at man's domination over the natural world, all of which explains why free-standing equestrian monuments commemorating illustrious leaders have long been an exalted artistic genre. But they're also among the toughest sculptures to pull off.
Convincingly representing a horse and rider isn't easy. Should the mount appear to be standing still, walking or trotting, or – for maximum drama – rearing? What about the sculpture's weight – how should that be distributed? And what should the figure be doing with their arms, so that they appear simultaneously dignified and dynamic?
These questions must all be considered by whoever creates the equestrian monument that will form part of Lord Foster's winning design for a national memorial to Queen Elizabeth II.
Here, to guide the way, we select five of the world's greatest such monuments (which, historically, have mostly depicted men) – as well as one statue, close to home for British readers, which provides a lesson in how not to approach the project.
Marcus Aurelius
Capitoline Museum, Rome (161-180AD)
The daddy of the genre. Although there were once many full-figure equestrian monuments across the Roman world, this stunning gilt-bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius, one of the five so-called 'Good Emperors', dressed in a tunic and military cloak, is one of only two examples to have survived antiquity, and thus, from the Renaissance, proved immensely influential. Note the steed's raised forehoof (did a vanquished barbarian once appear underneath?) – a display of sculptural daring, since the weight is distributed on three legs rather than four – and the victorious emperor's effortlessly commanding gesture, which seems to quell dissent without a weapon.
Bartolomeo Colleoni
Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice (c1479-1492)
While the hordes flock to St Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace, I make a beeline, whenever I'm in Venice, for Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo (or Campo San Zanipolo, as the locals call it) in the sestiere of Castello, to marvel at this masterpiece by the quattrocento Florentine sculptor (and Leonardo da Vinci's teacher) Andrea del Verrocchio: a superb, posthumously cast bronze equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, an important condottiere, or military leader, of the Republic of Venice during the 15th century. By imbuing the horse with so much frisky flair, Verrocchio outdid Donatello, whose Gattamelata in Padua, the earliest surviving Renaissance bronze monument, commemorating another condottiere, feels, in comparison, slightly plodding.
Peter the Great
Senate Square, St Petersburg (1766-1782)
Granted, the flamboyant effect of this twice-life-size monument to Peter the Great, aka 'the Bronze Horseman', commissioned by Catherine the Great, and created by the French Rococo sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falconet – is off the mark when it comes to devising a memorial for Elizabeth II; it's far too absolutist for her gentle public persona, which warrants something more modest and contained. Still, it reveals how dramatic a rearing horse can be, while the upward-sloping plinth – a monolithic 1,600-tonne granite boulder known as the 'Thunder Stone' – demonstrates the attractiveness of a natural base.
Richard Coeur de Lion
The Palace of Westminster, London (1851-1856)
Whenever I cycle past this bronze vision on top of a granite plinth in Old Palace Yard, opposite Westminster Abbey, depicting a straight-backed, proud-faced Richard the Lionheart holding aloft a sword while his steed paws the ground, I am amused and yet my heart is also stirred. Admittedly, although the plaster model for it made the name of the Italian sculptor Carlo Marochetti (1805-67) when it was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, the composition is a little silly – that He-Man physique, apparent beneath the king's chainmail coat, is excessively idealised, while his blade is improbably long. But there's something thrilling about the confidence the ensemble projects.
Physical Energy
Various locations, including London, South Africa and Zimbabwe (Early 1880s-1904)
Will the monument to Elizabeth II look anything like this surging, powerful bronze by the Victorian artist GF Watts, of which several full-size casts exist, including the example in London's Kensington Gardens? I doubt it – not least because Her Late Majesty will, I hope, be represented fully clothed. But Watts's sculpture – on which he worked until the end of his life, inspired by a commission, in 1870, to depict an aristocrat's ancestor as a hunter on horseback – reminds us that equestrian monuments should never be overly stately or static.
And one to avoid…
Charles I
Trafalgar Square, London (c. 1630-33)
It's ironic that England's most aesthetic monarch, King Charles I – who amassed a world-class art collection, and persuaded the Flemish genius Anthony van Dyck to be his 'Principalle Paynter' – was so poorly commemorated in this stilted, unimaginative piece by the fusty French sculptor Hubert Le Sueur (who conceitedly signed himself 'Praxiteles', after the celebrated 4th-century-BC Athenian sculptor). The problem with London's oldest bronze statue, which occupies a prominent site at Trafalgar Square? The bizarrely inflated appearance of its modelling, which gives both monarch and mount a pneumatic quality, as if the work were a 17th-century version of that infamous baby balloon of Donald Trump.