| Arthur Sullivan Memorial | |
|---|---|
"The most erotic statue in London"[1] | |
 | |
| Artist | William Goscombe John |
| Completion date | 1903 |
| Type | Sculpture |
| Medium | bronze and granite |
| Subject | Arthur Sullivan |
| Location | London |
| 51°30′33″N 0°07′13″W / 51.5093°N 0.1203°WCoordinates: 51°30′33″N 0°07′13″W / 51.5093°N 0.1203°W | |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
| Official name | Sir Arthur Sullivan Memorial |
| Designated | 24 February 1958 |
| Reference no. | 1238072 |
The Memorial to Arthur Sullivan by William Goscombe John stands in Victoria Embankment Gardens in the centre of London. It was designated a Grade II listed structure in 1958.
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Main article: Arthur Sullivan |
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer best known for his enduring operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert. Prior to his death in 1900, Sullivan had expressed a wish to be buried with other members of his family in Brompton Cemetery in West London. At the command of Queen Victoria, he was instead interred in St. Paul's Cathedral.[2] In 1903, a memorial to him was raised in Victoria Embankment Gardens, close to the site of the Savoy Theatre where many of his and Gilbert's comic operas premiered.[3]
Why, O nymph, O why display
Your beauty in such disarray?
Is it decent, is it just,
To so conventional a bust?
—rhyme inspired by "the most erotic statue in London"[4]
The sculptor was Sir William Goscombe John RA.[5] John modelled the head and shoulders bust in bronze,[a] subsequently adding the figure of a disconsolate woman, which he had sculpted in Paris in 1890–1899.[4] Sources variously describe the figure as representing "Grief"[7] or the Greek muse of music, Euterpe.[4]
The statue has been described as "the most erotic in London" and inspired a rhyme on that theme (see box).[4][8][9] John Whitlock Blundell and Roger Hudson, in their study The Immortals: London's finest statues, note the memorial's "fin de siècle spirit".[1]
The bust of Sullivan is in bronze and stands on a pedestal of granite.[7] A bronze figure of a woman weeping, her upper body nude and her lower body covered in drapery, leans, as if pressing her body in her grief, against the plinth.[10] Pevsner describes the Art Deco style of the memorial as "in the Père Lachaise manner”.[5] The plinth also carries lines from Gilbert and Sullivan's 1888 opera The Yeomen of the Guard: "Is life a boon? / If so, it must befall / That Death, whene'er he call, / Must call too soon."[4] The lines are repeated in the bronze sculpture at the base, which depicts an open book of music, one of the masks of Comedy and Tragedy, and a mandolin. The pedestal is fronted by a semi-circular stone bearing Sullivan's name and dates of birth and death.[11] The memorial is a Grade II listed structure.[7]
