Frieze of Parnassus

It contains 169 life-size full-length sculptures, a mixture of low-relief and high-relief, of individual composers, architects, poets, painters, and sculptors from history.

Henry Hugh Armstead carved the figures on the south and east sides, the painters, musicians, and poets (80 in total), and grouped them by national schools.

A mosaic frieze of more generalised figures from the arts runs round the circular Royal Albert Hall adjacent to the memorial.

The selection of figures reflects contemporary thinking, although even by the taste of the 1860s it seems odd to omit Schubert, then considered rather lightweight, whilst including Daniel Auber and Grétry.

Among the painters, a classical tradition predominates to the extent that there is no hint of Mannerism in the sixteenth century and Giulio Romano is omitted, nor is there any reference to Rococo taste, where a modern list would include Antoine Watteau and François Boucher.

Scott originally intended the last of the architects depicted in full to be himself, however, after all the other characters had been chosen, he realised he'd forgotten Pugin, the great genius of the Victorian Gothic Revival.