From the Westminster Abbey website:
HM The Queen, Visitor of the College of St Peter in Westminster, and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh attended a Service on Friday 21 May 2010 to Celebrate the 450th Anniversary of the Collegiate Foundation of St Peter in Westminster Abbey.
The Charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I on 21 May 1560 re-founded the former Benedictine monastery at Westminster as the Collegiate Church of St Peter under the governance of a Dean and Chapter and as a Royal Peculiar, that is not subject to bishop or archbishop but directly answerable to The Sovereign.
The Queen also unveiled a statue of Queen Elizabeth I at Westminster School, which you can see photos of here.
The arms and hands seem very odd.
That is a very bizarre statue. I could easily have nightmares about that coming after me. I wonder what the “hair” is made of?
What an absurd statue of a great queen.
It looks like a joke. I’d like to know what the sculptor was thinking.
I’d like to know what the judges, who picked this artist where thinking!
From Telegraph.co.uk 22nd May:
From the Abbey, the Queen was led to the neighbouring Westminster School where she officially opened a new education centre….
It was then the turn of the Queen to unveil the statue of Elizabeth I in the school courtyard.
As she pulled the purple covering from the sculpture, she was confronted with an 8ft stone and brass sculpture of Elizabeth I, complete with a large marble ruff.
The Duke of Edinburgh appeared tickled by the artwork, pointing to it and chuckling at one point. But its creator, sculptor Matthew Spender, said the royal guests appeared impressed. (He’s an old boy of the school & son of poet Stephen Spender.)
”They were interested in the technique I used and the materials,” he said after talking with the pair.
(It looks even stranger viewed full-length:
http://www.oldwestminster.org.uk/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=554)
I have no doubt but that Elizabeth I still wished she had control over her images!
IMO…this statue could figure quite prominently as a villian on “Doctor Who”!