Our Lady of Peace

Submit a new image

Reference WMO/261773

Address:

St Mary's Church

Bourne Street

Belgravia

London

SW1W 8JJ

England

Open large map

War Memorials Trust case: War Memorials Trust needs to avoid Contributors changing location/description details as we help to protect and conserve this war memorial through our casework. You can still add photographs, update condition and use the tabs below. If you believe any of the information you cannot edit is wrong or information is missing, please make a note of the reference number and include it in your email when you contact us.

Status: On original site
Type: Non freestanding
Location: Internal
Setting: Inside a building - public/private
Description: Figure sculpture
Lettering: Unknown
About the memorial: Statue of Our Lady, Queen of Peace, made of timber and plaster with gold and platinum leaf. The crown can be removed to enable a veil to be worn, and there is a sunburst behind. In the entrance portico to the Church there is a nook with a blue porcelain head of Mary and beneath a small wooden-framed Roll of Honour scroll. Work of Martin Travers. Martin Travers’ designs dominate St Mary’s, especially the high altar and reredos. Much of this was, in fact, a re-working of the earlier altar, and was subsequently changed. His most significant original work in the church is his statue of Our Lady, Queen of Peace, which was designed in 1920 and was the church’s memorial to the fallen of the Great War. The title of Our Lady of Peace, originally medieval, became particularly important in that war, when Pope Benedict XV added Our Lady of Peace to the Litany of Loreto. Travers’ statue may also have been influenced by the apparitions at Fátima in 1917, where the children said that they were told that prayer would lead to an end of the war. Significantly for Travers’ work, they described the vision as “the Lady more brilliant than the Sun.” The pose of the statue in St Mary’s is based on medieval precedents, where the Christ child is supported by the Virgin’s left hand. To emphasise her designation as a Queen, she wears a crown1, and her right hand holds a sceptre; these additions, too, are common in medieval sculpture, though in some other statues dedicated to Our Lady of Peace, the sceptre is replaced by an olive branch. It has been claimed that the inspiration for the work was the Golden Virgin in the south portal of Amiens Cathedral, a medieval carving which shares with Travers’ work the position of the child, the rich folds of the Virgin’s dress and, most importantly, the fact that the original was famous for being covered in gold.2 The natural pose of the Golden Virgin is widely seen as an example of a more human, natural way of depicting Our Lady that became more popular in the Gothic period. Roderick Gradidge3 refers to the Golden Virgin as being “well known to soldiers of the Great War.” Amiens was briefly taken by the German forces in 1914, before being re-taken by the Allies, and it was for much of the war a significant city not far behind the front lines. So important was the cathedral, that in 1918 Pope Benedict XV persuaded the Germans not to aim their guns at it. A large-scale mass was held in the cathedral shortly after the Armistice in 1918 and a statue of a weeping cherub inside the building was also popular with Allied troops. It would be natural for Travers to take the Golden Virgin as an influence on his work, given that it was to be a war memorial. In his new book on Travers4, Michael Yelton claims another French medieval inspiration, a statue in the Victoria & Albert Museum from Ecouen, near Paris. Despite these medieval influences, Travers gives his statue a distinctly Baroque look by the expressive face of the statue (said to be possibly modelled on his wife) and the addition of a large sunburst behind the Virgin’s head. The statue originally stood in the north aisle of the church, appropriately opposite the statue of St Joseph in the south aisle, but when Goodhart-Rendel’s Seven Sorrows Chapel was completed in 1927, it was moved back to the wall of the new chapel. Two maquettes of the statue are known to have been made; one was given to the Sisters at St Saviour’s Priory, Haggerston and the other to the Benedictine community at Pershore (which moved to Salisbury). In plans for the further elaboration of the church, not carried out, Travers designed a canopy to go over the statue.
Report this condition update

View more details
Report this condition update

View more details

Grants to support the repair and conservation of war memorials are available from the charity War Memorials Trust if it has raised funds. Support is focused on war memorials in Very bad or Poor condition or where there is a serious Concern.

Before applying for a grant you should read the advice available on War Memorials Trust`s website. The What we can and cannot fund helpsheet explains what types of work the charity can fund.

If you believe your project is eligible for a grant you should complete the Pre-application enquiry form. You will need to be registered and logged in to complete this.

The Pre-application enquiry form is a series of questions to see if your project is eligible. If it is, you will need to provide further details and submit current colour photographs of the war memorial in either a png, gif, jpg or jpeg format.

You can save your Pre-application enquiry form as you go along. Once submitted War Memorials Trust will respond.

Please be aware that a summary of your enquiry, without your contact details, will appear on this page once submitted. This ensures others are aware that an enquiry has been made and can read the response to avoid duplicate enquiries. Information provided by you to us will be used for the purpose of managing the grant enquiry, for further details please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy .

As a charity, War Memorials Trust relies on voluntary donations and every contribution, no matter how large or small, makes a really big difference to our work. Your donation will help protect and conserve war memorials for future generations so please support War Memorials Trust’s work.

Report this comment
Report this comment

Curtilage

1357230

Information Required

Information Required

Information Required

Information Required