STATUES OF LEAD

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 142, 16 June 1923, Page 14

STATUES OF LEAD

TREASURES AT STOWE HOUSE.

When it was announced that the fittings and remaining contents of Stowe House would be put up for sale by auction, there was considerable curiosity as to the fate of the lead statue of King George I. on the north front, and the old lead figures of Venetian lions, saysthe "Christian Science Monitor." Stowe House, it should be explained, was formerly the seat of the Dukes of Buckingham, but this is no time, with heavy taxation, for noblemen to maintain palaces in all their ancient splendour, and 1 ■ Stowe House has been sold. In a short time it will he opened as a public school, the,rival, it is hoped, of Eton and Harrow.

Lead -statues are not necessary to: the success of a public school, but the representatives of that new-born institution were prepared to spend 350 guineas in buying, the effigy of. King George, a life-size equestrian figure. . The statue, as we have said, is made of lead- and very few lead statues are •to be found to-day.. At one time they were fairly popular. John van Nost, a Dutch sculptor, who came to England in the wake of Kiiig William 111., set up a lead figure yard in Piccadilly which lasted for more than 100 years. The figures were cast in lead as large as .life, and frequently painted, with.an intention to resemble nature. They consisted of Punch, Harlequin, Columbine, and other pantomime characters, .haymakers resting on their rakes,, mowers whetting vtheir scythes, Roman soldiers with firelocks, I 'or-Africans bearing sundials on their heads. As a rule these lead effigies were intended as garden ornaments.". .•'.'"-".

■ .Men of ..taste despised them, and perhaps on that account few statues in lead of eminent men were executed. Curiously enough, the two mo.st famous, lead statues-to-day represent. King William 111. One of them is at Petersfield, in Hampshire. It consists of 20 pieces of lead, and has an interesting histoi'y. In 1731 a movement-was-start-ed in London for the erection of a statue to Dutch William, but although "sufficient money was forthcoming the Common Council vetoed the proposal for political reasons. As a protest equestrian statues of the King were erected in many towns, notably Bristol and Hull. The Petersfiekl statue, the sculptor of which -is unknown, was erected by Sir William Joliffe, then member of Parliament for the town, who put it Tip in front of his house.

But alas! In couree of time it was found to be in such, a state of disrepair that it' might have collapsed at any moment, for lead is far less durable than marble or bronze. William was. in-fact becoming undone; he was very much out of joint; and it required a sum of £350 to rivet his plates together, and give him a coat' of paint and gilt. And there, rejuvenated, he stands iv Petersfield to-day.

Dublin too has its lead statue of King William 111.,, which stands near unto the old Irish . House of Parliament. This equestrian figure of "King Billy," as he was called, was the object of both mischief and merriment. At one time tfis Majesty was annually decorated with orange ribbons to celebrate the anniversary, of the.Battle of the-Boyne. arid; just..as often, bereft of them by indignant. Nationalists.. Hut whuu /after long years of ill-treatment.--.it, liewuise necessary to put ''King Billy" in good repair, it was the Irish Nationalists Who found most of the money..