{"id":2420605,"date":"2026-05-17T15:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T15:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2420605"},"modified":"2026-05-17T15:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T15:55:12","slug":"a-royal-reception-to-mark-queen-elizabeth-iis-centenary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/a-royal-reception-to-mark-queen-elizabeth-iis-centenary\/","title":{"rendered":"A Royal Reception to Mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Centenary"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/picture><\/div>\n

<\/a>

Kiing Charles III and Queen Camilla with Lord Foster describing the model of the Queen Elizabeth Memorial on the centenary of her birthday, The British Museum, April 21, 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

On the centenary of Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s birthday on April 21, 2026, King Charles III and Queen Camilla came to the British Museum to view the final plans for his mother\u2019s official memorial. I was fortunate to be included among some two hundred guests for a private reception at the museum and an opportunity to see the models at close range. Lord Foster, the architect whose team won the competition to create the memorial, showed the monarch the scale model of St. James\u2019s Park where the multi-part memorial will be situated. The King and Queen also examined maquettes of the statues of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip and several distinctive features intended to illuminate aspects of the Queen\u2019s life and legacy: a Commonwealth Wind Sculpture by Yinka Shonibare depicting flowers on the Queen\u2019s coronation dress, a Commonwealth Compass designed by Lord Foster, and a steel and translucent glass bridge across St. James\u2019 Lake based on the Russian Fringe Tiara that the Queen wore on her wedding day.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/picture><\/div>\n

<\/a>

Three distinctive features of Lord Foster\u2019s plan for the Queen Elizabeth Memorial: top left and lower right, the Commonwealth Wind Sculpture, upper right, Norman Foster\u2019s design for the Commonwealth Compass, and lower left, the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge inspired by the Russian Fringe Tiara she wore on her wedding day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Royals Extra readers may recall that last spring I wrote about the significance of the memorial to Britain\u2019s longest reigning monarch in <\/span>The Queen Elizabeth II Memorial in London Begins to Take Shape<\/a><\/em> (April 14, 2025) and expressed my hope that Norman Foster\u2019s design would win in <\/span>Royals Extra Update: My Pick for the Queen Elizabeth II Memorial in London<\/a><\/em> (May 7, 2025). On June 24<\/span>TH<\/sup>, the eight-member selection committee headed by Lord Janvrin, formerly Elizabeth II\u2019s private secretary, announced their choice of Foster + Partners.<\/span><\/p>\n

The final scheme presented at The British Museum reflected major changes to the original plan. The most striking alteration was the replacement of Foster\u2019s vision of a large statue of the Queen on horseback facing the Mall. Also gone was a smaller statue of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip standing together on the other side of St. James\u2019s Park, in front of a new Prince Philip Gate at Birdcage Walk. Instead, the memorial will feature a ten-foot-tall bronze statue of the Queen in her twenties atop a fourteen-foot plinth overlooking the Mall, with a seven-foot-tall bronze statue of Prince Philip at the same age on a five-foot plinth, standing some sixty-five feet behind her in St. James\u2019s Park inside the Marlborough Gate. A bust of an older Queen\u2014likely in her sixties\u2014will be placed on the other side of the park facing Birdcage Walk, and there will be no Prince Philip Gate.<\/p>\n

Share<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

The proposed equestrian statue of the Queen had many fans, including myself, knowing how much she was defined by her love of horses. After conversations with people involved in the design process, I have come around to the new depictions. I\u2019ll explain below the rationale behind the changes and the approach of the principal sculptor, Martin Jennings, against the backdrop of an uneasy history between King Charles and Lord Foster. From photographs I took at the reception, I\u2019ll show details and perspective on the memorial that is expected to be unveiled in 2028. I\u2019ll also describe the only statue of the Queen on horseback located in Britain, and how it came to be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sallybedellsmith.substack.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kiing Charles III and Queen Camilla with Lord Foster describing the model of the Queen Elizabeth Memorial on the centenary of her birthday, The British Museum, April 21, 2026 On the centenary of Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s birthday on April 21, 2026, King Charles III and Queen Camilla came to the British Museum to view the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2420606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2420605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/A-Royal-Reception-to-Mark-Queen-Elizabeth-IIs-Centenary.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Ff611f64f-3e78-4ef8-b470-75b2b.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2420605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2420607,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420605\/revisions\/2420607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2420606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2420605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2420605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2420605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}