Prince Albert Sculpture, Leinster Lawn In 1869, John Henry Foley was commissioned by the Dublin City Albert Memorial Committee to design and create a memorial to Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, who had died in 1861. The Committee was chaired by the Lord Mayor of Dublin. The Committee’s role was to raise funds for the sculpture through public subscription and to source a suitable location for its erection. The selection of a suitable site was hotly debated at the time – proposed locations included College Green and Carlisle Bridge. The chosen location for the sculpture was Leinster Lawn on Merrion Square, then home to the Royal Dublin Society (now the rear lawn of Dáil Eireann). Leinster Lawn was considered eminently suitable as it had been the location of the Dublin Exhibition of 1853 which Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had jointly opened. Its proximity to the newly opened National Gallery of Ireland was also a deciding factor.
Where is Prince Albert? Prince Albert is back … was he … Out for a stroll? Gone to see relatives? Off visiting the statues of Parnell and Thomas Moore? OBAIR 12
John Henry Foley was born in No. 6 Montgomery Street in Dublin in May 1818. He studied in the Royal Dublin Society from the age of thirteen where he won numerous awards for modelling and drawing. He later studied at the Royal Academy in London, and exhibited there regularly from 1839. He was elected a Member of the Royal Academy in 1858 and the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1861. He was experienced and successful, and had obtained many
important public commissions by the time he was awarded the Albert commission in Dublin. He had already established himself as an eminent sculptor, having completed the figure of Prince Albert and the Asia group of figures for the Albert Memorial in London (located in Kensington Gardens, opposite the Royal Albert Hall). In Dublin, Foley is best known for the figures of Oliver Goldsmith and Edmund Burke outside the main entrance to Trinity College Dublin, and the equestrian sculpture of Viscount Gough which was located in the Phoenix Park (now in the UK). He was commissioned to undertake the O’Connell monument in Dublin in 1866. However, he completed only the sketch models and was working on the large scale clay models when he died in 1874. He finished the figures on the plinth but the other figures were later completed by his assistant, Brock. Foley is buried in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The sculpture group on Leinster Lawn consists of the bronze figure of Prince Albert flanked by four youths in bronze on a limestone pedestal. Prince Albert is dressed in the formal robes of the Knight of the Garter. Each of the four youths personifies an area that the Prince had promoted in his lifetime – science, art, industry and agriculture.