2-979-054 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Statue of Charles James Fox, in St. Stephen's Hall, [Houses of Parliament, London]. Baily, sculptor, 1857. 'The bulky proportions of this celebrated statesman seem not to harmonise with the rest of the figures now being placed in St. Stephen's Hall. We cannot help thinking that, had the figure been placed in a quiescent attitude instead of the present denouncing one, more effect would have been gained, and a clumsiness lost which now pervades the statue...One hand is raised, whilst the other is placed behind. He wears the square-skirted coat, buttoned close upon the chest by one button...There is little philosophic expression in this portraiture; the sculptor having rather impersonated Sir James Mackintosh's characteristics of Fox as an orator - that "he possessed above all moderns that union of reason, simplicity, and vehemence which formed the prince of orators'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.