Commemorative Sculpture of Alfred Lord Tennyson

Adopted by The de Laszlo Foundation

The present gesso model was used to make the colossal bronze cast of the statue of Tennyson and his wolfhound Karenina outside Lincoln Cathedral . Since the 1850s Watts had been a close friend of Alfred Lord Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, painting his portrait six times, the first in 1857 and the last in 1890/1. Tennyson, a native of Lincolnshire, died in October 1892 and it was belatedly agreed that a statue would be the most fitting memorial.

Earl Brownlow, Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire, approached Watts for advice on commissioning this, but Watts asked to be allowed to make the statue himself, not as a commission but without payment if the County would cover the expense of casting in bronze. Watts started work on the full-sized gesso grosso model of Tennyson in 1898, which was eventually sent for casting in late 1903, although Watts died before seeing the completed bronze erected in the precinct of Lincoln Cathedral in 1905.