3-003-872 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Inauguration of the Ernest-Augustus Monument at Hanover, 1861. Engraving from a drawing by Louis Herhold. Unveiling of an equestrian statue. '...the town was the scene of such a festival as, perhaps, has never been celebrated there since its foundation. This was to inaugurate the monument raised to the memory of the late King Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George III., who came to the throne of Hanover on the 20th of June, 1837, and died on the 18th of November, 1851, in the fourteenth year of his reign. It has been raised entirely by voluntary contributions from the people themselves, as a testimony of the love they bore to their late King, under whose good government the kingdom, and more especially the capital, made such great and rapid advancement in the arts and sciences, trade and agriculture. The total cost amounts to 35,000 dols., or about £5250. The statue, which was modelled by Professor Wolff in Berlin, and cast in bronze at the works of Messrs. Bernstorff and Eichwede, is of colossal dimensions...and represents Ernest Augustus on horseback, in the full uniform of the hussars. The monument...forms, with the fountains on each side of it, a splendid ornament to the most beautiful part of town'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.