Full-length cast bronze statue of Edmund Burke in contemporary dress; coat, waistcoat, breeches, shirt, cravat and buckled shoes. Standing with his head slightly to the right, right leg slightly forward, with right hand on his hip, holding a piece of paper in his left hand.

This statue of the Irish political writer Edmund Burke is a reduced version of a larger bronze statue by John Henry Foley erected outside Trinity College in Dublin in 1864. The original was commissioned with another full-length statue of the Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith. A reduced cast bronze version of Goldsmith’s statue at Trinity College is also in the Royal Collection (RCIN36124). Both reductions were cast by the Birmingham founders Elkington & Co after models by Foley, and Burke’s has the date, 1865, inscribed on the base.

Foley, as Goldsmith and Burke before him, had left his native Ireland to pursue a career in London where he moved in 1834 to attend the Royal Academy School. His first works to be exhibited at the Royal Academy were two statues of Innocence and The Death of Abel. A reproduction of the full length allegorical statue of Innocence made by Copeland in white porcelain and exhibited at the 1851 Great Exhibition was acquired by Queen Victoria for Osborne House (RCIN 34690). His most important royal commission – and perhaps his most famous – were the Asia marble group and the monumental gilt-bronze seated statue of Prince Albert for the Albert Memorial erected in Kensington.

The majority of his commissions involved statues, busts and monuments in response to the demands of the clientele of his time. From Ireland he received numerous commissions for sculptures of prominent Irish figures similar to those of Goldsmith and Burke at Trinity College.

The statues were possibly acquired by Queen Victoria.