Wellington Monument, London

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Not to be confused with the nearby Wellington Arch, sometimes wrongly called the Wellington Monument.

For other monuments of this name, see Wellington Monument.

The Wellington Monument is a monument to the first duke of Wellington and in his victories in the Peninsular War and the latter stages of the Napoleonic Wars. It is sited at the south-western end of Park Lane, near Hyde Park Corner in London. It was funded by £10,000 donated by British women and inaugurated on 18 June 1822. Its total height, including the sculpture, the base and the mound on which it stands, is 36 feet.

It is best known for its colossal 18 foot high statue of Achilles by the sculptor Richard Westmacott, produced from melted-down captured enemy cannon. Based on the poses of the Borghese Gladiator and more particularly the Quirinal Horse Tamers, it shows the Greek mythological hero as a muscular nude young man, raising his shield with his left hand and his short sword in his right hand, with his armour standing by his right thigh and his cloak draped over his left shoulder. On being transported to its final site, the entrance gates into Hyde Park proved too low for it and it proved necessary to knock a hole in the adjoining wall. The inscription on the statue's Dartmoor granite base reads:

To Arthur Duke of Wellington

and his brave companions in arms

this statue of Achilles

cast from cannon taken in the victories

of Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, and Waterloo

is inscribed

by their country women

Placed on this spot

on the XVIII day of June MDCCCXXII

by command of

His Majesty George IIII.

This was London's first public nude sculpture since antiquity and, though the artist had already included a fig leaf over the figure's genitalia, much controversy still resulted, pitching the sculptor's supporters such as Benjamin Robert Haydon against fierce critics such as George Cruikshank in his Backside & front view of the ladies fancy-man, Paddy Carey¹. The controversy may also have been linked to Canova's nude colossus of Napoleon that had arrived just before this at Apsley House, and also treated on whether Achilles was a metaphor for military heroism in general, Wellington in particular or both.

Notes

External links

• The Gentleman's Magazine, 1822
• Review of "Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-Century Monument: Sculpture as Theatre.", Art Bulletin, September 1996, by Christopher M.S. Johns]

Coordinates: 51°30′16″N 0°09′10″W / 51.5045°N 0.1527°W / 51.5045; -0.1527