The Gladstone Memorial (Courage)

myminifactory

This is a Courage part of The Gladstone Memorial, a dramatic group where a mother fiercely defends her child from danger. The child, stark naked and vulnerable, clutches in alarm to the body of the mother, who has seized the marauding snake's neck with one clenched fist, holding the short curved sword that she is about to strike off its head with her other powerful hand. She wears a Heraclean lion's head and skin on her head, symbolizing strength, and though seated, like the other figures, the sense of dramatic movement is shown in the force of her arm, the twist of the drapery across her stomach, and the push of her knee to crush down on the body of the snake. This is a truly splendid creation. The Gladstone Memorial stands out as one of London's most significant memorials. If we consider a hierarchy of monuments, with the average being a single figure of a personage on a tall pedestal, then having four allegorical groups surrounding the central statue makes it an especially ennobled place. In London, after the Albert Memorial, unrivaled in Britain, the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace, the mighty single figure of Achilles for Wellington, and the two great pillars to Nelson with his lions in Trafalgar Square and the Duke of York in Waterloo Place, the next size down is the Gladstone memorial – indeed there are not so many others in London with several groups – the Wellington monument at Hyde Park Corner has four standing figures surrounding the equestrian figure, and Queen Anne in front of St Paul's has four allegorical figures, and comparable in weight would be Boadicea at Westminster Bridge in her mighty chariot, but there are not much else.