Eros, Piccadilly Circus, London, March 2016
This nude statue on top of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain caused a fair bit of controversy when it was erected in the 1890s in the centre of Piccadilly Circus. The memorial was built to commemorate Lord Shaftesbury, a Victorian politician and philanthropist, and the sculptor Alfred Gilbert was commissioned to create the figure on top.
Now you are probably wondering why a naked cupid was chosen to honour a recognised philanthropist?
Whilst we all know this cheeky aluminium figure as Eros, he is actually the more mature and honourable brother! Gilbert had already created a statue of brother Anteros, the God of Selfless Love, and decided to feature the same god on this memorial. He actually described Anteros as portraying “reflective and mature love, as opposed to Eros or Cupid, the frivolous tyrant”.
Hex colour reference: #addad6
A colourful note: this delicate blue-green shade joined the Crayola crayon boxes in 1998 under the name of blue bell. I’m assuming its name was inspired by the flower of the same name, but to me this crayon shade differs hugely from the bold blue of the spring flower.
Copyright Debbie Smyth, 20 March 2016
Linked to My Sunday Photo and Sundays in my City
Travel with Intent 
Love the story behind this scuplture. I love the photo and how he stands out at night sky and those bokeh adds character too! #mysundayphoto
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Excellent photo! I enjoyed the story too.
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I had to chuckle when I saw the photo. Quite am interesting sculpture!
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Fascinating photo , post and colour!
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thanks, funny history behind the sculpture 😉
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Isn’t it amazing. Anteros has never got the publicity it seems he deserved!!
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Interesting information and love the angle – cheeky!
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Well, you learn something new every day!
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Good old Google and Wikipedia 😚
On Sun, Mar 20, 2016 at 2:13 PM, Travel with Intent wrote:
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🙄
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Great story and how wonderful it looks all lit up at night
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Love this story and it looks so good at night
Thank you for linking up
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Wow for being at night time it really stands out!! Fab capture.
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I loved this story. I have been to that statue so many times and never knew that it is not meant to be Eros!
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I like the histories to your pictures. It makes it very interesting.
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