3-021-372 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Statue of Edmund Burke, by J. Foley, R.A., for Trinity College, Dublin, 1868. 'Mr. Foley, the eminent Irish sculptor - nay, the first of British sculptors - will ultimately be nobly represented in his native land...The statue of Burke is now being cast in bronze, and will be erected within a very short period...on College-green......Burke's presence was handsome and at once strikingly manly yet refined...The extremely spirited and effective attitude, the firmness and combativeness expressed in that clamped mouth, are beyond all praise. Altogether the living character and the exquisite modelling - perfectly true to nature, yet governed by the finest artistic feeling - of this statue entitle it to be considered one of the greatest triumphs of modern sculptural art. The materials Mr. Foley has consulted are a mask of the face taken after death, lent by Mr. Morton Wood; a portrait by Opie, at Knole; and the portrait by Reynolds, giving nearly a profile view'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.