William Shakespeare, Bronze sculpture in Central Park, US
The William Shakespeare is a bronze statue in Central Park, Manhattan, cast in 1870 by John Quincy Adams Ward. Shakespeare stands in Elizabethan dress, his right hand holding a small book to his chest and his left hand on his hip, a cloak draped behind him. The bronze base, inscribed J Q A WARD and 1870, rests on a pinkish stone plinth designed by Jacob Wrey Mould.
A group of prominent New Yorkers formed a committee in 1864 to raise funds for a monument marking the playwright's 300th birth anniversary. The finished work was installed in Central Park in 1872 after several years in the making.
The statue stands along the Literary Walk, a tree-lined path in the park where several writers are honored with sculptures. Visitors often stroll this path on their way through the park, making it one of the more frequented spots in the area.
The statue stands on the Mall's Literary Walk in Central Park, reachable on foot from the park entrances along Central Park South and Fifth Avenue. The ground around the pink granite plinth is level and paved, so it can be approached with a stroller or wheelchair. The bronze base carries the sculptor's name, J Q A WARD, and the date 1870.
The sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward based his work on three different portraits made during the playwright's lifetime, since no single confirmed likeness exists. This meant the final statue is a composite drawn from multiple sources rather than a copy of one image.
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