FIRST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY, ATTRIBUTED TO RUNDELL, BRIDGE AND RUNDELL, PUBLISHED BY THOMAS HAMLET

The triumphal laurel-wreathed statue depicts George IV dressed in antique attire as a victorious Roman commander in celebration of his magisterial role as 'Pater Patriae' and 'Peace Bearer' with the instigation of Europe's Pax Romana through wide-ranging alliances. The statue, with a bust of the monarch, derives from a model by the court sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey and bears the patent mark of Thomas Hamlet with 1818; the year in which he opened his Oxford Street emporium entitled 'The Queen's Bazaar'. The statue is modelled on that of a Louis IV period bronze statue of Julius Ceasar, purchased by George IV in 1824 from his court goldsmith Philip Rundell (d.1827). The latter was a reduced version of a model invented by the Rome-trained French court sculptor Nicolaus Coustou (d.1733) (see C. Hartop, Royal Goldsmiths: The Art of Rundell & Bridge, London, 2005. p.90). It's pedestal relates to that featured the previous year on an equestrian statue of the monarch executed by Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, who titled themselves as 'Aurifices Regis Londini'. It is modelled on that of the Capitolines equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, formerly identified as Constantine, who established Christianity as the religion of his Empire.

Thomas Hamlet (d.1835) was a leading early 19th century gentleman entrepreneur, whose Princes Street silver and jewellery emporium flourished from 1800 to the early 1830s (J. Culme, Nineteenth Century Silver, 1977). However this statue, sold from his premises in 1834, is likely to have been executed under the direction of the court goldsmiths Messrs Rundell, Bridge and Rundell of Ludgate Hill, who served as 'Goldsmiths & Jewellers' to George IV.