John Henry Foley

John Henry Foley

While much contemporary Victorian sculpture was considered lacking in quality and vision, Foley's work was often regarded as exceptional for its technical excellence and life-like qualities.[2] He was considered the finest equestrian sculptor of the Victorian era. His equestrian statue of Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge for Kolkata was considered, with its dynamic pose of horse and rider, to be the most important equestrian statue cast in Britain at the time. His 1874 equestrian statue of Sir James Outram, 1st Baronet for Kolkata was also widely praised and, like the Hardinge statue, was also considered an important symbol of British imperial rule in India.^[3] Foley's pupil Thomas Brock completed several of Foley's commissions after his death, including the statue of Prince Albert for the Albert Memorial.

Biography

Early life

Foley was born 24 May 1818, at 6 Montgomery Street, Dublin, in what was then the city's artists' quarter. The street has since been renamed Foley Street in his honour.

In 1849 Foley was made an associate, and in 1858 a full member of the

By the time he died, Foley had completed an 18-inch tall model of Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning on horseback. Both horse and rider were depicted in rigid, motionless poses. All the subsequent work on the commission including the full-size modelling, overseeing of the casting and shipping to India and the design of the plinth were completed by Thomas Brock. The statue was originally unveiled at a central location in Barrackpore but was moved in 1969 to a more remote location, a former British military compound where it was placed on a brick base and sited overlooking the grave of Lady Canning.^[12]

Albert Memorial

In 1864, Foley was chosen to sculpt one of the four large stone groups, each representing a continent, at the corners of George Gilbert Scott's Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens. His design for Asia was approved in December of that year. Foley's Asia, like the other three continental groups, featured a central large animal, in this case an elephant, attended by figures representing different cultures.^[2][14] In 1868, Foley was also asked to make the bronze statue of Prince Albert to be placed at the centre of the memorial, following the death of Carlo Marochetti, who had originally received the commission, but had struggled to produce an acceptable version.^[15] By 1870, Foley's full-sized model of Albert was complete and had been accepted. However a series of illnesses slowed Foley's progress and by 1873 only the head of the statue had been cast in bronze while hundreds of other parts were still individual plaster figures. Foley died of pleurisy in 1874, blamed by some on the extended periods he had spent working surrounded by the wet clay of the Asia model.^[16] When Foley died, his student Thomas Brock took over his studio and his first job was to complete the figure of Albert which he did within eighteen months. By then, the Albert Memorial had already been unveiled without the statue of Albert.^[16] After the statue of Albert was installed on the monument, it was, briefly, inspected by Queen Victoria in March 1876 before being boarded up for gilding. That original gilding was removed in 1915 but restored in the 2000s.

Foley died at his home "The Priory" in

Following the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, a number of Foley's works were removed, or destroyed, as the individuals portrayed were considered hostile to Irish independence. They included those of Lord Carlisle, Lord Dunkellin (in Galway) and Field Marshal Gough in Phoenix Park.^[20] The statue of Lord Dunkellin was decapitated and dumped in the river as one of the first acts of the short-lived "Galway Soviet" of 1922.^[21]

Selected public works

1839-1849

Image	Title / subject	Location and coordinates	Date	Type	Material	Dimensions	Designation	Wikidata	Notes
	Catherine Jane Prendergast (1811-1839)	St. Mary's Church, Chennai	1839	Bas-relief	Marble				[12]
	John Hampden	St Stephen's Hall, Palace of Westminster	1847	Statue on pedestal	Marble				[22]
	William Stokes	Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Dublin	1849	Statue on pedestal	Marble				A former president of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland

1850-1859

Image	Title / subject	Location and coordinates	Date	Type	Material	Dimensions	Designation	Wikidata	Notes
More images	Hermaphroditus or A Youth at a Stream	Bancroft Gardens, Stratford-upon-Avon	1851	Statue	Bronze				Cast in bronze by J. Hadfield for The Great Exhibition of 1851.[23]
	John Selden	St Stephen's Hall, Palace of Westminster	1853	Statue on pedestal	Marble				[22]
More images	Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge	Shaheed Minar, Kolkata	1857, erected 1859	Equestrian statue on pedestal	Bronze	5.7m statue on 6m pedestal	Grade II listing		Removed from Kolkata and set up on a Hardinge family property at Penshurst, Kent. It was later relocated to the garden of a house in Over, Cambridgeshire.[24][12][25]

1860-1864

Image	Title / subject	Location and coordinates	Date	Type	Material	Dimensions	Designation	Wikidata	Notes
More images	John Nicholson	Lisburn Cathedral	1862	Relief	Marble				[26]
	Charles Barry	Palace of Westminster, London	1863	Seated statue					[22][2][27]
	John Elphinstone, 13th Lord Elphinstone	The Asiatic Society of Mumbai	1864	Statue on plinth	Marble				[12]
More images	Oliver Goldsmith	Trinity College, Dublin	1864	Statue on pedestal	Bronze				[2]
More images	Father Theobald Mathew	St. Patrick's Street, Cork	1864	Statue on pedestal	Bronze			Q55027847
More images	Charles John, Earl Canning	Westminster Abbey	After 1862	Statue on pedestal	Marble				[28]
More images	Asia	Albert Memorial, London	1864	Sculpture group	Stone		Grade I listed	Q120199176	[29][30]
	Nusserwanji Maneckji Petit (1827-91)	Gowalia Tank, Mumbai	1865	Statue on pedestal	Marble				Pedestal by Paolo Triscornia of Carrara[12]

1865-1869

Image	Title / subject	Location and coordinates	Date	Type	Material	Dimensions	Designation	Wikidata	Notes
	Sir Henry Marsh, 1st Baronet	Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Dublin	1866	Statue	Marble				[31]
	John Sheepshanks	Victoria & Albert Museum	1866	Bust	Marble	78.7cm tall			[32]
More images	Monument to Daniel O'Connell	O'Connell Street, Dublin	1864, unveiled 1882	Statue on pedestal with supporting figures	Bronze and stone	11.7m tall		Q33123185	[2][33]
	Albert, Prince Consort	Birmingham Council House	1866	Statue on pedestal	Carrara marble	Statue 230cm, pedestal 93cm			[18]
More images	Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde	George Square, Glasgow	1867	Statue on pedestal	Bronze and granite		Category B	Q17792870	[34]
More images	Statue of Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea	Waterloo Place, London	1867	Statue on pedestal	Bronze		Grade II	Q25311606	First unveiled n Pall Mall. Moved to the War Office, Whitehall, in 1906. In 1915 it was moved to Waterloo Place.[35][16][36]
More images	Albert, Prince Consort	Leinster House, Dublin	1868	Statue on pedestal with supporting figures	Bronze
More images	Edmund Burke	Trinity College Dublin	1868	Statue on pedestal	Bronze and stone
	John Fielden	Centre Vale Park, Todmorden	Designed 1863, erected 1869	Statue on pedestal	Bronze and granite		Grade II		[37][30]
	Sir Dominic Corrigan	Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Dublin	1869	Statue	Marble				[38]

1870-1874

Image	Title / subject	Location and coordinates	Date	Type	Material	Dimensions	Designation	Wikidata	Notes
	Lord Carlisle	Phoenix Park, Dublin	1870	Statue on pedestal					Statue removed 1956
	Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning	Barrackpore, India	1874	Equestrian statue	Bronze				Completed posthumously from Foley's model by Thomas Brock[22][39][12]
More images	Sir James Outram, 1st Baronet	Maidan, Kolkata	1874	Equestrian statue on pedestal	Bronze and Cornish granite			Q92360193	Relocated to the gardens of the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata[39][12]
More images	Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness	Grounds of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin	1875	Seated statue on pedestal	Bronze and stone
More images	Stonewall Jackson	Capitol Square, Richmond, Virginia	Unveiled 1875	Statue on pedestal	Bronze and stone				[7][40]
More images	Albert, Prince Consort	Albert Memorial, London	Installed 1876	Seated statue	Gilded bronze	4.2m tall statue	Grade I	Q120199176	Completed by Thomas Brock[29]
More images	Henry Grattan	College Green, Dublin	1876	Statue on pedestal	Bronze				Model shown in Dublin in 1872; statue inaugurated January 1876.
More images	Michael Faraday	Royal Institution, London	1876	Statue	Marble			Q120448320	The statue was completed by Thomas Brock after Foley's death and installed in 1876.[41]
	Robert James Graves	Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Dublin	1877	Statue	Marble				Completed by Albert Bruce Joy after Foley's death[6]
More images	William Rathbone V	Sefton Park, Liverpool	1877	Statue on pedestal with relief panels	Portland stone		Grade II	Q2633129	Statue by Foley, relief panels by Brock [42]
More images	Hugh Gough, 1st Viscount Gough	Chillingham Castle, Northumberland	1878	Equestrian statue on pedestal					Previously in Phoenix Park, Dublin
More images	Michael Faraday	Savoy Place, London	1989	Statue	Bronze			Q27154696	Bronze copy of Foley's 1876 marble statue of Faraday in the Royal Institution.[16]

Other works

• Memorial to Sir Henry Lawrence, 1858, in St. Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata consisting of a marble relief portrait in a gothic frame.^[12]
• Memorial to William Ritchie, 1865, in St. Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata consisting of a marble bust portrait supported by two figures representing Justice and Truth.^[12]
• Bust of Major-General William Nairn Forbes, 1858, marble version in the former Silver Mint building on Strand Road, Kolkata and painted plaster model held by the Asiatic Society, Kolkata.^[12]
• Caractacus (1857), for the Mansion House, London. Bury Art Museum
  also has a version of Egeria.
• The Elder Brother from Comus (1860), Foley's Royal Academy diploma work.
• The Muse of Painting (1866), a monument to James Ward, R.A. at Kensal Green Cemetery.^[22]
• Sir
  Tate Gallery collection.^[43]
• Marble relief portrait of William Hookham Carpenter, 51.3cm square, in the British Museum.^[44][45]
• Ulick de Burgh, Lord Dunkellin (1873), Eyre Square, Galway
• Statue in memory of George Howard [1], the 7th Earl of Carlisle. Moat Hill, Brampton Cumbria 1869 (another version in Dublin was blown up by IRA 1956)
• Memorial to the lawyer James Stuart (1854) for Colombo, Sri Lanka
• The National Portrait Gallery, London holds two portrait busts, both in marble, of the poet Bryan Procter and of the actress Helena Faucit by Foley^[46]