THE HARPER STATUE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 254, 2 November 1897, Page 2

THE HARPER STATUE.

(By Telegraph. —Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, this day.

Last night a recumbent marble statue of the late Bishop Harper, of Christchurch, was unveiled before a large congregation in the Cathedral, by his son, Canon Harper, and Mr Henry Slater, the chancellor of the diocese. Bishop Julius gave an address. The statue is Dy F. J. Williamson, of Esher, Surrey, and is a striking likeness and a fine artistic work.

INTERVIEW WITH THE SCULPTOR OF THE HARPER MEMORIAL.

Our London correspondent writing of a visit which he paid lately to Mr J. F. Williamson, the sculptor of the Harper Memorial, at the village of Esher, says :— " Although Mr Williamson had only photographs to guide him he has be£ very successful in his work and product l striking -likeness. He has wiseJpicted Bishop Harper as he look^^ 0 twenty years or so before l»* d . . his well cut features full ,£ ose de^f. and; vigour To those >J>~ Bfionld represent™ m the P™™ of his life, whe/his ,'aracter was most strongly pvhihired ir ms countenance. The deppased nri- ate 1S tyin S ln his robes on a marble uch> llis lef^ hand clasping his • co .dl cross, his right resting on his brerA his head is slightly inclined to 4-p left, the eyes closed in sleep. As a'q look at the figure the likeness grows upon us. The best point of view is from the right hand side of the monument.where the profile is most prominently seen, the broad brow, strong aquiline nose and firm lips forming a speaking likeness. Mr Williamson tells me that according to his instructions the memorial is to be placed with its right side to the wall. All of us were of opinion that this would be a great mistake and that the figure should be so situated that people could walk round it and examine it from different points of view. If the right side is against the wall the most striking view of our revered primate, which will appeal most strongly to those who knew him in his prime, will be entirely lost. '' Yes," said Mr Williamson, " it requires some care in shipping, for the block of marble weighs' 7 tons, but we don't pack it in the usual way, but build it in with struts so that you may turn the case over and stand it on its head without injuring the figure. For the robes I am indebted to the late Bishop of Wakefield, who composed the Jubilee hymn. The marble ? It is called Sicilian, but comes from Carrara, for there's not an inch of marble in Sicily. But come into this room and look at the model." He takes us into an inner room where amidst a mass of plaster figures we behold a somewhat dingy looking original of the memorial we have just left. "You see," continued Mr Williamson, " your Bishop curiously enough is alongside the Bishop of another Christchurch —Christchurch, Darwin."

A dainty little figure of Titania reclining in the centre of a large fern -whose leaves curl over her appears to be suffering from smallpox, being pitted with numerous little holes. These holes, Mr Williamson explains, are drilled so as to correspond with the measurements of the original in plaster, and when his assistant has chipped away the marble to the bottom of these small holes the master's hand begins its work, A Jubilee bust of the Queen is lying in the same condition. " The Queen has just been sitting to me for that bust; it is the last she will sit for. One is going to India and one to Ireland, but I expect that' Install have to repeat it. One of my nn ,,i r f. rn . t haA to reneat as many as 13 times."

Mr Williamson is par excellence sculptdf to the Queen and the Royal Family. He has executed busts and statues of all its members except the Prince of Wales, who, being so busy, has never been able to give him enough sittings, but whom he hopes to perpetuate in marble next Christmas. The studio is full of Royalties, even to Prince Edward of York, crawling on all fours with a little punchinello tightly clasped in one hand. Mr Williamson tells us a pretty story of the way in which he held the infant Prince on one arm, modelling him with the other, soothing the child's restlessness by the occasional production of sweetmeats from his jacket.

A colossal statue, painted bronze colour, of the Queen, erect and dignified, sceptre in hand, next arrests our attention. " That is the bronze statue of the Queen," explains Mr Williamson, " I made for the Rangoon people in 1887. I got the idea for that position some time before when 1 was at Osborne. I was on the terrace with some of the ministers watching the Queen standing at the open door. One of the ministers said something to her, and she at once drew herself up to her full height and stood in such a dignified attitude—so," and Mr Williamson suited the action to the word, "and I said to myself 'Well, Your Majesty, if ever I have to make a statue of you, it shall be in thiit position,' little thinking that some day I should have to put my idea into practice." Imperial and impressive the attitude certainly is and must have satisfied the Rangoon people, particular as they were about the sceptre. " They would have that sceptre," says Mr Williamson with a twinkle in his eye. "I intended at first that the Queen should have a fan in her hand, but they wouldn't take the statue without a sceptre. " They wouldn't accept her without," interjects one of us. " Precisely. Oh, what a time IJhad to get that sceptre," says Mr Williamson in comic despair and forthwith gives us a most dramatic representation of his visit to the Tower and the formalities and ceremonies connected with the unlocking of the cage in which the Regalia are kept and the handing of the sceptre to him to model. Many royal possessions have passed through Mr Williamson's hands, the small crown and numerous jewels, including the famous Kohinoor. Laid on the shelf is the head of a judge in flowing wig. "That's Lord Esher, Master of the Rolls," proceeds our guide, philosopher and friend, "but he's not laid on the shelf yet, although his monument's in the churchyard here. I must tell you about that. 1 was making a monument for his son, Lieut. Brett, who died of fever soon after his return from the Egyptian campaign. The judge said to me one day ' I think I may as well erect a monument to myself while I'm alive. No one else will when I'm dead.' I told his lordship I quite agreed with him. ' We'll have Lady Esher too,' said he, ' and we'll be lying side by side.' Well I had several sittings and did a recumbent figure of Lord Esher but I could not get his wife to sit to me. ' Never mind about her consent,' said Lord Esher when I told him, 'I'll give you a' photograph and you cau just make a pretty woman of-her.. I've no objection to going down to posterity by the side of a pretty woman !' So I made a pretty woman of her and carved the two lying side by side. At last we overcame her ladyship's scruples, who didn't like to have her marble counterfeit put up until she was dead, and the monument was erected in the churchya" d. For some time they used to go and put wreaths on their own monument, but I had to stop them from doing that as the wreaths discoloured the marble."

Passing by a number of nobodies, crowds of whom Mr Williamson tells us he has had to break up, we take a last look of the peaceful figure of our old bishop, the sunshine lighting up his quiet countenance, and pass out into the trim little garden, where the leaves. are glistening with the shower that has just fallen. Glaremont, once the property of Lord Clive, where

Princess Charlotte and Leopold late King of the Belgians lived, and which was aftfg wards assigned as a residence to L^g Phillippe and his wife, lies just/ft am . back ot the garden, and Mr J r over son used to have a step laj) vuk e o f the garden wall so that th/ r f e j t Albany dropped in wheD' the garden inclined. We pass fr£ ammed full of into a sort of show-roon^ statueS) and groups, medallions, fe uenfc testiniony to statuettes bearing'\ nd abmty> J We the sculptors moV^ has 29 / gof learn from hnify and celebrated men in the Royal Far^ ExMbition at the the Victorig eand that he has executed 97? b f lone- In this small room there • AU/S" a^our> tne ruSS'ec l features of yie. j Tennyson, modelled at Aldworth °?er Lady Tennyson's supervision, Prince "/opold, tne late Duke of Marlborough, Divines, including the well-known " Hang Theology Rogers,' Mayors and millionaires, princes and politicians. On the mantelpiece stands a statuette of John Brown, executed in bronze for.the Queen, the features expressive of the sturdy, somewhat brusau6:independence of her favourite attendant. Mr. Williamson has a tale or two ffiM!;*QsjsW J! and his sayings, and we laupi:'bver" the latter's criticism of the medallion of Prince Leopold on the opposite wall. In fact, there is hardly a work in the studio which has hot attached to it some amusing or pathetic incident. There are busts of husbands ordered by sorrowing wives, who have married again before the dear departed's features are free from the artist's chisel, and who have in some cases repented of their commission, and in others paid the sculptor's fee and left the bust on his hands. A graceful little model of a lady reclining on a Greek couch is intended as a present for some happy husband. One of Mr Williamsons' best designs is a recumbent figure of the late Earl of Rosslyn, his sorrowing widow weeping grief stricken over her husband's body, her graceful figure artistically breaking the long straight lines of white marble. This is to be placed in Ilosslyn Chapel, celebrated for its famous Prentice Pillar.

Esher churchyard, pleasantly situated on a gentle slope, contains almost another collection of Mr Williamson's works, so numerous are the monuments he has erected here. On the green sward we notice in very sooth Lord Esher in his long wig and robes of office, lying peacefully by the side of his wife under a marble canopy, and the light brown stain on the marble corroborates Mr Williamson's story about the wreaths. But the most beautiful monument in this peaceful God's acre, and to my mind the finest of Mr Williamson's works, is the figure of Mrs Clarke, erected by her husband, owner of the Satanita, which sank the Valkeyrie on the Clyde. Under a high open canopy she sits on a handsomely carved chair. She is robed in graceful Grecian drapery and holds a lyre in her right hand. The light falls upon the snow-white marble delicate and distinct against the soft blue sky. It is a charming picture, rendered all the more touching by the knowledge that the husband never lived to see the completion of his wife's statue.

We step out of the church gate on to the village green, on which many an important cricket match has been played, as the tiles and slates of a long row of antiquated, flower-wreathed cottages can testify, pass the old stone gates of Esher House, once the seat of Cardinal Wolsey, and take our way to the station under a high avenue of beech and chestnut, and across the Sandown racecourse, pausing on the stand to enjoy a comprehensive view of undulating wooded country, including Windsor Castle, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Richmond and Hampton. On the way home the rattle of the carriage wheels seems to repeat the old conundrum and its-answer, " Why is a,sculptor's the most horrible death ?" '' Because lie nmkes TaceK and busts. .Fa-ces and Busts, races and Busts." ■ •■• ■ • ■