“Justice (Victoria Memorial)” by Sir Thomas Brock (original) (raw)

Justice

Sir Thomas Brock, K.C.B., R.A. 1847-1922

1911

Marble

The Victoria Memorial

North-west side of memorial, between the Mall and Buckingham Palace, London

Compare the photograph of a side view published in the 1911 Studio.

Photograph by George P. Landow December 1999

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.]

Three sides of the pedestal the sculptor has devoted to symbolising the personal qualities of the Queen. Her love of truth is expressed in a very beautiful group on her right. A glad-winged figure of Truth, holding up a mirror to Nature, stands between a child bearing a palm-branch and an exquisitely expressive figure of a seated woman searching in a scroll for the Truth. On the other side, the noble group of Justice renders another tribute to the Queen's character; but this is no stern conventional personification of Justice. Here she is represented as an energetic, kindly angel, who, though she carries a sword in her left hand, extends her right to help and protect the weak and oppressed in the pathetic form of a nude suffering girl, while the scales are carried” by a child. — Malcolm C. Salaman

Bibliography

Beattie, Susan. The New Sculpture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.

Salaman, Malcolm C. “Sir Thomas Brock's Queen Victoria Memorial.” The Studio 53 (June 1911) 29-40.Internet Archive digitized from a copy in the University of Toronto Library.

Last modified 25 December 2010