Washington Monument Sculpture Group

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Visit our “Tour Destination: Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia” page to see the entire tour of the area’s Save America’s Treasures sites.

George Washington equestrian statue from the Washington Monument
Sculpture Group in Richmond's Capitol Square.

Washington Monument Sculpture Group

9th and Grace Street

Richmond, VA

Website:  Virginia State Capitol: Capitol Square

The Treasure:  Celebrating pride in Virginia’s Revolution-era patriots, the Washington Monument Sculpture Group in Richmond’s Capitol Square is capped by the commanding figure of George Washington on horseback. The entire sculpture group comprises the George Washington equestrian statue, the pedestal, six statues of other Virginia patriots, and smaller allegorical figures.

Accessibility: The Washington Monument Sculpture Group is located in Capitol Square, a 12-acre public park and civic campus. The Capitol building is open to visitors Monday through Saturday from 8 to 5 and on Sundays from 1 to 5.

Washington Monument Sculpture Group.

Background:  I suggest approaching from Grace Street, a city street that ends at a gated entrance to Capitol Square. From the street, you can see the park opening out in front of you with the imposing Washington Monument Sculpture Group serving as a centerpiece to the park.

The Washington Monument Sculpture Group is largely the creation of Thomas Crawford (1814-1857). A New York-born sculptor living in Italy at the time he won the competition to create the memorial, Crawford’s design places the bronze statue of Washington high above visitors to Capitol Square. Six prominent Virginians—Patrick Henry, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Nelson, Jr., John Marshall, and Andrew Lewis—are symmetrically arranged around the central pedestal. Crawford’s assistants and the American sculptor Randolph Rogers completed work on the sculpture group in the 12 years following Crawford’s death in 1857.

Capitol Square is a working government complex, centering on the second oldest working Capitol in the United States. From the entrance on Grace Street, look behind the Washington Monument Sculpture Group to see the Executive Mansion where Virginia’s governor resides (the oldest governor’s mansion still in use in the nation). Now look to the right and you’ll see the Virginia State Capitol, designed by Thomas Jefferson. Expanded since its original design, the House of Delegates and the Senate of Virginia still meet in session here.

Notes from the Editor:  As a professional fundraiser, I’ve been known to grow impatient with the length of capital campaigns for “brick and mortar” projects. They can seem interminable! But judging from the story of the funding of the Washington Monument Sculpture Group, work may not have been any easier for fundraisers in the 19th century. The Virginia General Assembly began active discussion on the creation of a Washington memorial in 1800, shortly after Washington’s death in December 1799. Then for nearly 50 years, the project ebbed and flowed along, with short bursts of active fundraising separated by years of inactivity. Finally, the General Assembly announced the competition for a sculptor in 1849. The last of the allegorical statues was placed on the monument in 1869.

Think of that stretch of time… If you were 20 when the project was first broached in 1800, you would have been 89 when the project reached completion. That’s too long a project for this impatient fundraiser!

Patriot statues on the Washington Monument Sculpture Group: Andrew Lewis
on the left, Patrick Henry in the center, and George Mason on the right,
with an allegorical figure in the foreground.

Other Recommended Sites:  The Washington Monument Sculpture Group is an official American treasure. But the most famous statue in Richmond’s Capitol Square is another one of Washington located in the Capitol rotunda. Sculpted by French artist Jean Antoine Houdon, this life-size marble statue of Washington was completed during Washington’s life and is based on detailed measurements of his body. According to legend, Washington’s friend the Marquis de Lafayette declared upon seeing the statue, “That is the man, himself. I can almost realize he is going to move.”

The Capitol’s old House of Delegates chamber is maintained today as a museum and it’s filled with more statues. The most imposing of these is a bronze statue of General Robert E. Lee, standing on the spot where Lee accepted command of the military and naval forces of the Commonwealth of Virginia in April 1861. If you can’t arrange a time to visit in person, the Virginia General Assembly website has posted an informative Virtual Tour of the Virginia State Capitol and its grounds.

And if you grow tired of all the political statuary, Richmond boasts other statuary, notably including an Edgar Allen Poe statue in Capitol Square and a Bill “Bojangles” Robinson statue in a small park at the intersection of Adams and West Leigh Streets in Richmond’s Historic Jackson Ward District.

Other statuary in Richmond's Capitol Square.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Wednesday’s destination:  Library of Virginia (Thomas Jefferson Gubernatorial Papers)
Friday’s destination:  Jackson Ward Historic District

© 2012 Lee Price