Equestrian statue of George I, Birmingham

The Equestrian statue of George I, by John van Nost the Elder,[1][2] is a statue that stands outside the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, England.

[2] The bronze statue was commissioned by the city of Dublin in 1717,[3] as a gesture of loyalty towards George I (who had been King of Great Britain and Ireland since August 1714[4]), in the face of support from Irish Catholics for the pretender to his throne, James Stuart.

[5][6] George is shown wearing contemporary clothing, but with a laurel wreath in the Roman style.

[2] It was acquired for the Barber Institute, Birmingham in 1937 (at which time Dublin was the capital of the Irish Free State) by the institute's founding director, Thomas Bodkin, who had arrived there directly from his post as director of the National Gallery of Ireland in 1935.

[3] In July 1982, the statue was granted legal protection as a Grade II listed structure, preventing unauthorised removal or alteration.

Statue of George I on a plinth off Essex Bridge, Dublin where it stood from 1722-53 as seen in Charles Brooking's map of Dublin (1728) .