Durham, Joseph RA

1821

1877

Durham was a prolific sculptor who exhibited no fewer than 128 items at the Royal Academy between 1835 and 1878, the last being shown a year after his death. His best-known work today is undoubtedly the gilded sculpture of the Prince Consort forming the centre-piece of the Albert Memorial. This sculpture originally decorated the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society before being moved to its present site. Rupert Gunnis tentatively dates the Garrick Club’s bust of Thackeray as 1864, after the novelist’s death. Among Durham’s other works may be numbered the portraits of Newton, Milton, Bentham and Harvey in front of Burlington House, Jenny Lind ‘the Swedish Nightingale’ and W. H. Smith.