Alfred Drury

During a long career Drury created a great number of decorative figures such as busts and statuettes plus larger monuments, war memorials, statues of royalty and architectural pieces.

[2] Both Circe, from 1895, and Griselda of 1896 were typical of the allegorical female figures from mythology and literature that were key subjects of the movement and both sculptures were reproduced in several different sizes in bronze and marble by Drury in subsequent years.

Tasked with providing sculptures for twelve pillars along a boundary wall, Drury carved a sequence of female heads from a baby to that of an old women to represent the months of the year from January to December.

[9][2] For the latter scheme, Drury carved several female faces and half-figures including a large keystone figure above the main entrance, consisting of the head of a woman wearing a bronze helmet and framed by oak and ivy branches.

[2][11] By 1904, Drury had become established as one of the foremost architectural sculptors active in Britain at the time and this led to the series of commissions for which he is perhaps best known, for the War Office in Whitehall, for the facade of the Victoria and Albert Museum and for Vauxhall Bridge.

[2] For the Old War Office Building on Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall, Drury created four groups of two seated, twice life-size, female figures in Portland stone during 1904 and 1905.

[2] In late 1904 the London County Council commissioned Drury and F. W. Pomeroy to each create four colossal bronze figures for niches on the piers supporting the new Vauxhall Bridge.

[2] By March 1905 Aston Webb, the architect of the Cromwell Road extension to the Victoria and Albert Museum had commissioned over twenty sculptors to provide statues, carvings and decorations for the facade of the building.

Within the curve of entrance arch he created nine low-relief panels featuring kneeling or crouching female figures holding plaques with gold lettering that when read together form a quotation from Sir Joshua Reynolds.

That same year, Webb commissioned Drury to produce a relief panel, of children at play, for the new offices of the Grand Trunk Railway Company in Cockspur Street in central London.