The Queen could barely hide her pleasure, breaking into a broad smile, as she unveiled the first public statue of herself in Britain on Monday. The bronze statue, in Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, was commissioned by the Crown Estate to mark Her Majesty's Golden Jubilee.
"She gave the impression she was very happy with it," said sculptor Philip Jackson afterwards. The three tonne, £300,000 work depicts the Queen on horseback at one-and-a-half times life size.
Mr Jackson also revealed that he found the monarch very easy to work with during sittings. "She was terribly pleasant and co-operative – couldn't have been more so," he said. "What was difficult was that the Queen is probably the best known person in the world and everyone has an image of her and has expectations. But I suppose I was selected because I was going to portray her as she is without putting too much modern spin on it."
It took two years for him to complete the piece, which depicts Her Majesty halfway through her reign in the 1970s. The last British monarch to have a statue of herself unveiled in the UK during her lifetime was Queen Victoria.
"It's a historical piece in a way," said Philip. "People 200 years from now will be able to come and see what the Queen looked like."
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
