Height overall: 45cm (in)
Patinated bronze. Standing figure of a Private of the Black Watch in Waterloo period uniform. Cast by the art founders Elkington & Co.
The present figure is a reduction of the the four over-life size figures positioned at the corners of Wellington memorial equestrian statue that faces Apsley House at Hyde Park Corner, London. It represents Scotland as one of the four British nationalities that fought under Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815; the other three figures are a Grenadier Guardsman (England), a Royal Welch Fusilier (Wales) and an Inniskilling Dragoon (Ireland).
In 1880s London’s Hyde Park Corner was remodelled with the re-siting of Decimus Burton’s elegant triumphal arch to its present axis on Constitution Hill and the removal of Matthew Coates Wyatt’s ungainly equestrian statue of Wellington to Aldershot. Thus the need arose for a new equestrian statue of Wellington to be sited opposite Apsley House. A committee under the chairmanship with the Prince of Wales appointed the Queen’s Sculptor in Ordinary Sir Edgar Boehm to carry out the work.
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The original contract provided for a plain, granite base only, but in November 1886 Boehm told fellow Royal Academician Sir John Everett Millais that ‘there is a proposal to put four soldiers of the Waterloo period - one on each corner.’ The idea suited Boehm’s instincts for realism over the use of allegorical figures or high ranking officers. Moreover, ‘It was a reaction against older elitism, towards a more realistic iconography, a military corollary of Realism, with its emphasis on ordinary people. Notwithstanding his [Wellington’s] attributed quotation about the playing fields of Eton, it was felt that Wellington owed much to the grizzled veterans, some of whom had been fighting under his command for as many as twenty years.’ And after all, ‘These and other veterans had contributed towards the Wyatt monument’ (Stocker, M. (1988), ’Boehm, Royalist & Realist’).
The monument was officially unveiled by the Prince of Wales on 21 December 1888 and judged an overall success, with the corner figures receiving the greatest praise. The journal ‘The Builder’, declared ‘The sculptor has steered quite clear of the commonplace dressed-up soldier figure that we frequently see in sculpture; these are fine, hardy types of men who have seen hard service and no more of war than its mere parade.’ The contrasting impassiveness of Wellington and the liveliness of the soldiers was noticed by the ‘Art Journal’ which called the latter ‘dramatically demonstrative. In every case there is a distinct research of individuality of character. Most daring is the effect of life in the enkindled Celtic face of the cavalry officer [sic].’ The Royal Highlander and Welsh Fusilier Sergeant were considered to show similarly deft characterisation.
In response to their critical success Boehm exhibited two large plaster models of the Grenadier and Enniskillen Dragoon at the Royal Academy of 1889 and though criticised for their finish, they inspired enthusiasm for the bronze models of the present type. The Grenadier was produced in appreciable numbers of around 100 as the result of a regimental commission. Examples may be found in the National Army Museum, The Guards Museum and at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire. N.A.M. further holds a silver-gilt version of the Royal Highlander (42nd Black Watch). The large plaster figure of the Dragoon is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Examples of the Fusilier and Highlander are rare.
Sir Edgar Boehm, Bt, RA (1834-1890) was born in Vienna, the son of the director of the Austrian Imperial Mint. He came to London 1848 and studied for three years, mainly at the British Museum; and afterwards in Italy, and at Paris, and Vienna, where he won the First Imperial Prize in 1856. In 1862 he settled permanently in London and later the same year first exhibited at Royal Academy. He took British nationality in 1865, and was appointed A.R.A. in 1878 and R.A. in 1882. He was a Lecturer on sculpture at Royal Academy and received the membership of several foreign academies. Boehm enjoyed a constant flow of commissions for public monuments, portrait statues and busts and became Sculptor in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1881. His notable works include Lord Napier of Magdala in Queen’s Gate, Kensington; the Prince Imperial (killed in the Zulu War of 1879-80) in St George’s Chapel, Windsor; Gordon of Khartoum in St Paul’s Cathedral; Thomas Carlyle on Chelsea Embankment; the free standing figures of Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales on Temple Bar Memorial, Fleet Street; and the portrait head of Queen Victoria for the 1887 coinage. Boehm’s was close linked to Princess Louise, Queen Victoria's artistic daughter, who apparently was the first to find Sir Edgar’s dead body in his studio off the Fulham.