Thomas Thornycroft

[2] He had the royal family's full co-operation in its creation, the queen's horse being sent round to his studio several times during the process.

[3] Fifty bronze casts of a statuette based on the plaster, but with the horse's legs in a different position, were commissioned by the Art Union of London to be distributed as prizes between 1854 and 1859.

[6] The one at Liverpool, commissioned in 1862 but not completed until five years later,[6] was soon paired with an equestrian portrait of Queen Victoria (1869), the pose based on the earlier bronze statuette.

[4] In 1867 Thornycroft was commissioned to make the marble group entitled Commerce for the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens in London.

[3] The sculpture was not cast in bronze until 1902, 17 years after his death,[2] when it was installed on a plinth on the Victoria Embankment, by Westminster Bridge, London.