The Palace and Park: Its Natural History, and Its Portrait Gallery, Together with a Description of the Pompeian CourtLatham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
History
The Palace and Park: Its Natural History, and Its Portrait Gallery, Together with a Description of the Pompeian Court
Latham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Crystal Palace (Sydenham, London, England)
It is preferable, in order not to overlook any of the important objects
which are stored in the several Transepts, to examine each Transept
completely, as we enter it on our interesting tour, and after passing
round both ends to resume our walk in the Nave, advancing up toward the
north end of the Palace on the left-hand side, and returning down the
right-hand or garden side. Turning then to the left, we proceed round
this Transept, from left to right, noticing on our course the statues
and other objects which are placed in the open space at each end. The
first conspicuous one of these which we find is, a cast of the
well-known equestrian statue of Charles I., from the original at Charing
Cross. It was designed and executed, in 1633, by Hubert Le Sueur, a
French sculptor, pupil of the celebrated John of Bologna, but was not at
the time raised on its intended site. During the civil wars, the
Parliament, wanting men more than statues, sold it to John Rivet, a
brazier, living in Holborn; by whom it was kept concealed until the
restoration of Charles II., when it returned again into the hands of the
government, and was finally erected at Charing Cross in 1674. The
pedestal is a work of the celebrated sculptor, Grinling Gibbons.
Beyond the statue of Charles I. in the central line, is placed that of
James II. by Grinling Gibbons, cast from the original now in the court
at the back of Whitehall. It is an excellent example of a
portrait-statue treated in the classical style; and affords us a proof
of the higher reach of Gibbons’s genius; whose well-earned reputation in
the seventeenth century, we may remark, rested more especially on his
works in ornamental carving, of which the exquisitely cut fruits,
flowers, wreaths, and other ornaments on the façade of St. Paul’s,
London, are examples.
Between these two Royal Statues is a Mosaic picture of the Ruins of
Pæstum, executed in modern Roman Mosaic, every shade and tint being
composed of separate pieces of vitreous material; and in front of the
statue of James, a model of a Chinese Junk carved in ivory, which is
lent to the Crystal Palace Company by Her Majesty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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