Statue of William III

About

A bronze statue of William III of England stands on the south side of Kensington Palace in London, facing towards the Golden Gates. The statue was designed by Heinrich Baucke and erected in 1907. It was cast by the Gladenbeck foundry in Berlin and given as a gift by the German Emperor Wilhelm II to his uncle, King Edward VII.

The statue has been a Grade II listed building since 1969. The statue was created as one of five large statues of the Princes of Orange – the Oranierfürsten – commissioned by Wilhelm II and erected in 1907 on the balustrade of the terrace on the north side of the Berliner Schloss, beside the Lustgarten in Berlin. The statues were intended to illustrate the close relationship between the Dutch House of Orange and the German House of Hohenzollern, and they echo similar statues by François Dieussart erected by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, in the pleasure garden of the City Palace, Potsdam.

Copies of each statue were also commissioned and presented as gifts: the originals were damaged in the Second World War and four were destroyed. (The statue of Maurice of Orange by Martin Wolff survived, and was displayed beside Humboldt Box.) Most of the copies have...