Not to be confused with the nearby Wellington Arch

Wellington Arch

Wellington Arch, also known as Constitution Arch or the Green Park Arch, is a triumphal arch located to the south of Hyde Park in central London and at the north western corner of Green Park...

, sometimes wrongly called the Wellington Monument.

For other monuments of this name, see Wellington Monument

Wellington Monument

Wellington Monument may refer to any one of the monuments to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, a leading British political and military figure of the 19th Century, particularly noted for his defeat of Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo....

.

The Wellington Monument is a monument to the first duke of Wellington

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...

 and in his victories in the Peninsular War

Peninsular War

The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...

 and the latter stages of the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

. It is sited at the south-western end of Park Lane

Park Lane (road)

Park Lane is a major road in the City of Westminster, in Central London.-History:Originally a country lane running north-south along what is now the eastern boundary of Hyde Park, it became a fashionable residential address from the eighteenth century onwards, offering both views across Hyde Park...

, near Hyde Park Corner

Hyde Park Corner

Hyde Park Corner is a place in London, at the south-east corner of Hyde Park. It is a major intersection where Park Lane, Knightsbridge, Piccadilly, Grosvenor Place and Constitution Hill converge...

 in London. It was funded by £10,000 donated by British women and inaugurated on 18 June 1822. Its total height, including the sculpture, the base and the mound on which it stands, is 36 feet.

It is best known for its colossal 18 foot high statue of Achilles

Achilles

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

 by the sculptor Richard Westmacott

Richard Westmacott

Sir Richard Westmacott, Jr., RA was a British sculptor.-Life and career:He studied under his father, Richard Westmacott the Elder, before going to Rome in 1793 to study under Antonio Canova...

, produced from melted-down captured enemy cannon. Based on the poses of the Borghese Gladiator

Borghese Gladiator

The Borghese Gladiator is a Hellenistic lifesize marble sculpture actually portraying a swordsman, created at Ephesus about 100 BCE. It is signed on the pedestal by Agasias, son of Dositheus, who is otherwise unknown.-Rediscovery:...

 and more particularly the Quirinal Horse Tamers

Horse Tamers

The colossal pair of marble "Horse Tamers", often identified as Castor and Pollux, have stood since Antiquity near the site of the Baths of Constantine on the Quirinal Hill, Rome, too large to be buried or to be moved very far, though Napoleon's agents wanted to include them among the classical...

, it shows the Greek mythological hero as a muscular nude young man, raising his shield with his left hand and his short sword in his right hand, with his armour standing by his right thigh and his cloak draped over his left shoulder. On being transported to its final site, the entrance gates into Hyde Park

Hyde Park, London

Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...

 proved too low for it and it proved necessary to knock a hole in the adjoining wall. The inscription on the statue's Dartmoor granite base reads:

To Arthur Duke of Wellington

and his brave companions in arms

this statue of Achilles

cast from cannon taken in the victories

of , Vittoria

Battle of Vitoria

At the Battle of Vitoria an allied British, Portuguese, and Spanish army under General the Marquess of Wellington broke the French army under Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan near Vitoria in Spain, leading to eventual victory in the Peninsular War.-Background:In July 1812, after...

, Toulouse

Battle of Toulouse (1814)

The Battle of Toulouse was one of the final battles of the Napoleonic Wars, four days after Napoleon's surrender of the French Empire to the nations of the Sixth Coalition...

, and

is inscribed

by their country women

Placed on this spot

on the XVIII day of June MDCCCXXII

by command of

His Majesty George IIII

George IV of the United Kingdom

George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...

.

This was London's first public nude sculpture since antiquity and, though the artist had already included a fig leaf over the figure's genitalia, much controversy still resulted, pitching the sculptor's supporters such as Benjamin Robert Haydon against fierce critics such as George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience.-Early life:Cruikshank was born in London...

 in his Backside & front view of the ladies fancy-man, Paddy Carey. The controversy may also have been linked to Canova's nude colossus of Napoleon that had arrived just before this at Apsley House

Apsley House

Apsley House, also known as Number One, London, is the former London residence of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner, on the south-east corner of Hyde Park, facing south towards the busy traffic interchange and Wellington Arch...

, and also treated on whether Achilles was a metaphor for military heroism in general, Wellington in particular or both.

External links

• The Gentleman's Magazine, 1822
• Review of "Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-Century Monument: Sculpture as Theatre.", Art Bulletin, September 1996, by Christopher M.S. Johns]