Sculptor transforms the Iron Lady into the Bronze Baroness
Until Wednesday night, Margaret Thatcher will be hidden in a wooden box in the House of Commons. Then the Speaker, Michael Martin, will unveil her, and Britain's first woman Prime Minister will face Winston Churchill in the Members' Lobby.
The version of Lady Thatcher which will give her a permanent place in the Palace of Westminster is a 71-stone [994-pound], full-length, 7-foot 4-inch statue of silicon bronze.
As Mr Speaker sits in his chair and looks down the Chamber through the open doors beyond, he will see her, notes in one hand, leaning forward to make a point with the forefinger of the other. Her left heel lifts off the ground.
Although this is not literally the first time that skirts have been depicted in parliamentary sculpture – Queen Victoria is on the premises, and Pitt the Elder is there, wearing a toga – Antony Dufort, the artist, faced a challenge for which there were no real precedents.
How should he adjust the heroic traditions of formal sculpture to portray a modern woman in modern clothes?
Lady Thatcher herself helped him. She was impressed by pictures Mr Dufort sent her of his bronze of a Nottinghamshire coal miner...
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The version of Lady Thatcher which will give her a permanent place in the Palace of Westminster is a 71-stone [994-pound], full-length, 7-foot 4-inch statue of silicon bronze.
As Mr Speaker sits in his chair and looks down the Chamber through the open doors beyond, he will see her, notes in one hand, leaning forward to make a point with the forefinger of the other. Her left heel lifts off the ground.
Although this is not literally the first time that skirts have been depicted in parliamentary sculpture – Queen Victoria is on the premises, and Pitt the Elder is there, wearing a toga – Antony Dufort, the artist, faced a challenge for which there were no real precedents.
How should he adjust the heroic traditions of formal sculpture to portray a modern woman in modern clothes?
Lady Thatcher herself helped him. She was impressed by pictures Mr Dufort sent her of his bronze of a Nottinghamshire coal miner...