A new statue of Queen Elizabeth I was unveiled in Little Dean's Yard on Friday, 21st May 2010 in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen. Click here if you would like to view a slideshow of photos from the Queen's visit. The sculptor, Matthew Spender, is an old boy of the School and son of Stephen Spender.
His work is a striking tribute to a great Queen. An imposing figure, some eight feet tall, the statue creates an immediate impression of power and majesty. In concept and design and in the spirit of Westminster’s 450th anniversary, it looks backwards and also forwards, proud of history and tradition but very much of the present and prepared for the future. The Queen takes her stance in Yard as part of the Westminster community, not set apart on a plinth or fenced in with railings, but looking towards College and surveying the everyday activities of the School she founded and often visited.Much is owed to the royal effigies in the Abbey, particularly the tomb of Elizabeth I and, for its gilded features, that of Eleanor of Castile, both familiar to Westminster pupils of every generation; while the portraits of Nicholas Hilliard were studied to achieve a more youthful expression and to indicate the colouring of her hair. The body is made from travertine cut from quarries near Matthew’s Siena home, a stone chosen for its resemblance in shade and texture to that of the interior of Henry VII’s Chapel. As for the marble ruff, the sculptor writes: ‘I planned to carve lace patterns into her ruff, like those of many tombs in the Abbey, but the Carrara marble was so beautiful it needed no decoration’. The different materials and stones used for the statue echo still further back in time, to the coloured, bronze, marble and travertine statuary of classical Greece and Rome and of the Etruscans. The statue might even, at first sight, resemble an archaic symbol or some great prehistoric idol. Yet, as Alan Borg, a Governor of the School, Old Westminster contemporary of Spender, and Former Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, writes: ‘the twentieth century masters also form part of the mix; Jacob Epstein made his massive figures of Night and Day for the London Underground Headquarters at 55 Broadway, only yards from the School and doubtless seen by Matthew when he was a pupil here’.
Dr Borg continues: ‘But it would be wrong to try to analyse the Queen in purely historical terms. The statue is very much of its own time, a site-specific work that animates Little Dean’s Yard and re-focuses our attention on the space. It is not a bland sculpture and not everyone will like it, but blandness was not a characteristic either of the great Queen or of the School which she founded. I believe Spender’s work will come to be seen as a tribute to our traditions of radicalism and independence, as well as permanent commemoration of a significant anniversary.'
The inscription cut into the statue’s elliptical base reads: ELIZABETHAE PRIMAE REGINAE FUNDATRICIS NOSTRAE HANC IMAGINEM MUNIFICENTIA SOCIETATIS SCHOLARIS WESTMONASTERIENSIS MANDATAM ANNO POST COLLEGIUM CONDITUM CCCCLMODEDICAVIT VISITATRIX NOSTRA REGINA SECUNDA ELIZABETHA AD MMX. SCULPSIT MATTHEW SPENDER ALUMNUS And can be translated as: ELIZABETH THE SECOND OUR VISITOR DEDICATED, IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND AND TEN, THE FOUR HUNDREDTH AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE, THIS STATUE OF OUR FOUNDRESS ELIZABETH THE FIRST, COMMISSIONED BY THE GENEROSITY OF THE WESTMINSTER SCHOOL SOCIETY AND SCULPTED BY MATTHEW SPENDER A FORMER PUPIL |
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