Raising a Toast

But reading the following in the Art Journal, it's hard not to feel a twinge of regret this other proposal for the Nelson memorial wasn't executed.

No. 1, a model, by Pistrucci, of the Mint, presents a colossal trident, eighty-nine feet high, rising from a segment of the globe, forty-five feet in diameter, on which three very graceful reclining figures of victories are engaged in sculpturing memorials of the hero. Praise is due to M. Pistrucci for an original conception, cleverly carried out, but the form of a trident is so common that no one could hope to impart to it either grace or dignity. Seen from any distance the memorial would be nothing more nor less than, a large toasting fork.

The Four Elements

I was struck by these sculptures that appeared recently on a wall next to the new Willis Building in Lime Street in the City of London. A little research revealed that they aren't new, but were taken from the previous building on the site, built for Lloyds in the 1950s, but placed so high as to be virtually invisible.

They are by the Nottingham-born sculptor James Woodford (1893-1976). The name wasn't familiar to me, but I had come across some of his works before. He was a member of the Royal Academy, and received commisions for work for at Norwich City Hall and the Headquarters of the Royal Institute of British Architects in Portland Place and made the "Queen's Beasts" in plaster for the coronation in 1953, which he later replicated in stone for Kew Gardens.