Memorials to William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is depicted leaning on books and pointing to a scroll which has a slightly misquoted version of Prospero's lines from The Tempest about the globe dissolving to "leave not a wrack behind".

With the removal of Banks's sculpture to New Place in 1871 London boasted no outdoor public memorial to the bard, and the erection of the New York statue in 1872 made this omission particularly glaring.

In 1874 the financier Baron Albert Grant, wishing to address this situation, installed a fountain with a marble statue of Shakespeare at its centre in the gardens of Leicester Square.

This originally comprised a theatre building, to be sited on land donated by the bank of the Avon within sight of the church where Shakespeare was buried.

The monument shows Shakespeare seated on a pedestal, surrounded, at ground level, by statues of Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, Prince Hal, and Falstaff.

These characters were intended to be emblematic of Shakespeare's creative versatility: representing Philosophy, Tragedy, History, and Comedy.

[16] Between 1970 and 1993, an image of the Poets' Corner statue of Shakespeare appeared on the reverse of Series D £20 notes issued by the Bank of England.

[17][18] A complex memorial to Shakespeare was created in Southwark Cathedral, which was his parish church when he lived in London close to the Globe Theatre.

A recumbent statue of Shakespeare, created by Henry McCarthy in 1912, was placed in a niche on which was carved images of Elizabethan Southwark depicting the Globe, Winchester Palace and the tower of the church.

[19] Despite Germany's early role in canonising Shakespeare it was not until 1904 that a statue was erected in Weimar showing him, as one critic has put it, "seated and staring into the distance with a bemused and thoughtful look".

[21] The statue, designed by Louis Hasselriis, was funded by public subscription and erected in Elsinore, along with a sculpture of Hamlet.

It depicts not only Shakespeare at the top, but five of his most famous characters around the base – Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet embracing, Portia and Falstaff.

Eventually private donations to the fund produced sufficient resources to commission a bronze sculpture from Andor Meszaros, an Australian artist originally from Hungary.

Touchstone is lounging with his head tilted laughing, his feet hanging over the top of the tall stone pedestal and his left arm resting on Hamlet's legs.