THOMAS THORNYCROFT | YOUNG QUEEN VICTORIA ON HORSEBACK

When the awe-struck Victorian visitors to the Great Exhibition in 1851 first entered Paxton's Crystal Palace they were at once faced by Thornycroft's life-size equestrian statue of Queen Victoria. Its innovative representation of the young sovereign in contemporary clothes riding her lively Arab stallion was considered by some critics as too modern. The Times described the group somewhat quizzically as 'too anatomical'. The portrait was selected by the Art Union of London for reproduction as a bronze reduction following its exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1854.