PIN Lord Shaftesbury`s Eros

Piccadilly`s Famous Fountain

Picaddilly is often depicted with the `statue of Eros` in the background.Most people know the statue isn`t really of Eros, but Anteros, his twin brother. But that does not stop most Londoners and its visitors from referring to the statue by his erroneous name.

Sculptor Alfred Gilbert was commissioned to create a memorial to Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, in 1886. For five years Gilbert considered various ideas to celebrate the charitable life of the Earl. He eventually decided on a fountain, topped with the winged figure of Anteros, the ancient Greek symbol of Selfless Love.

History

The monument is surmounted by Alfred Gilbert's winged nude statue generally, though mistakenly, known as Eros. This has been called "London's most famous work of sculpture"; a graphical illustration of it is used as the symbol of the Evening Standard newspaper and appears on its masthead. It was the first sculpture in the world to be cast in aluminium and is set on a bronze fountain, which itself inspired the marine motifs that Gilbert carved on the statue.

The model for Anteros was Gilbert's diminutive Anglo-Italian studio assistant, Angelo Colarossi. According to the 1881 census, the large Colarossi family lived at 14 Masboro Road West, in Shepherd's Bush.
Angelo's father was also an artist's model, and you can see the pair of them in Frederick Leighton's 'And the sea gave up the dead which were in it.'

The use of a nude figure on a public monument was controversial at the time of its construction, but it was generally well received by the public. The Magazine of Art described it as "...a striking contrast to the dull ugliness of the generality of our street sculpture, ... a work which, while beautifying one of our hitherto desolate open spaces, should do much towards the elevation of public taste in the direction of decorative sculpture, and serve freedom for the metropolis from any further additions of the old order of monumental monstrosities."

When the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain was unveiled by the Duke of Westminster on 29 June 1893, lots of people were unimpressedThe complaints were plentiful: the memorial wasn't in a fitting part of town (Theatreland was seen as rather vulgar back then); the statue was too sensual to be an appropriate tribute to the respectable Earl.

One society periodical considered that 'the figure on the summit' was 'hideous, indecent and ludicrous', and the memorial was 'ugly, pretentious, unsuitable, and a decided nuisance.'

An attempt to rename the statue 'The Angel of Christian Charity', deemed to be the closest approximation of 'Anteros' in English, in order to quell those being sniffy about the nude boy on top, totally failed to catch on.

How to get there?

You can take the Piccadilly line and stop at the Piccadilly station with the overground.
Or you can take the bus and stop at the Piccadilly

Owner

Sarah Kuszowski

I'm a French girl exploring London. I'm 18 years old and im student for the Parc Iimperial in Nice for buisness.I'm here to practice my English and learn more about London. I am working with TripTide as an intern...