William Shakespeare. New Place Gardens. - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

The relief was originally made to adorn the façade of John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall, London.
Designed by George Dance the Younger and opened on 1789.

Boydell wanted to set up an English school of historical painting with emphasis on scenes from Shakespeare.
The relief was in London until about 1870, the building having been owned by the British Institute since Boydell's death, c1805.

The building was demolished in 1868 and Bank's relief was bought from the disposal agents Trollope & sons for £75 by Charles Holte Bracebridge of Atherstone Hall with a view to presenting it to Stratford-upon-Avon.

Although nearly a century earlier, in 1791, the European Magazine described the sculpture as 'the most perfect piece of sculpture that has yet been produced by a native of Great Britain'it took Bracebridge a while to overcome the resistance in the town to such a monument; the general feeling in the town was that any monument should be in the form of a theatre.

Mr Halliwell, the trustee of The Great Gardens of New Place (Shakespeare's home before his death) had stated that he would not have 'Boydell's rubbish' in New Place.

The sculpture arrived in Stratford on 14 July 1870, with Charles Flower loaning his brewery's dray horses to transport it from the railway station.
On the work's arrival in Stratford in was discovered that two of the five strings of Poetry's lyre were missing and also a segment of the garland she held aloft, but the missing pieces could not be found.

A Mr Edward Gibbs supervised the unloading and erection of the relievo. It was cleaned during the autumn of 1870 with a mixture of soap, soda and lime to remove the accumulated grime.

There are no records of any formal unveiling ceremony, although the Stratford Herald of 18 November 1870 records the work as having been completed.
The alto-relievio was finally set up on a plinth 183cm high; considerably lower than the site it was made for.
In 1882-93 a Mr Baker of Wellesbourne was employed to overhaul and restore the work and a cornice was added 'for its better protection and preservation'.

Shakespeare returned to Stratford from London around 1610, living as a country gentleman at his house, New Place.
His will was made in March 1616, a few months before he died, and he was buried at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

Entry free, open daylight hours all year.

URL of the statue: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   10/11/2018 Alancache visited it