Friday 19 February 2010

Minehead - London

Yesterday I asked how Minehead’s statue of Queen Anne is connected to London. The answer is that its sculptor, Francis Bird, also sculpted another statue of the Queen to stand outside St Paul’s Cathedral. Indeed, it was after seeing the London statue that Bancks was inspired to commission one for his own town.

Have lots of bonus points if you knew that Francis Bird was also a protegé of Grinling Gibbons, the Deptford boy made good! He had trained in Europe, and went on to become a leading British baroque sculptor who did a great deal of work on St Paul's Cathedral - as well as a dealer in marble.

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