Statue of James II

In the City of Westminster, the Statue of James II presents a late seventeenth-century monarch in sculpted form. James II ruled England, Scotland and Ireland during political and religious upheaval.

Peter Van Dievoet and Laurens van der Meulen created the sculpture while working in Grinling Gibbons’s London workshop. Both artists came from the Flemish sculptural tradition. Gibbons was an Anglo-Dutch sculptor and wood carver born in Rotterdam in the mid-seventeenth century. His London workshop brought skilled Flemish collaborators together on major commissions. Van Dievoet and Van der Meulen worked together on this commission.

The work combines English and Flemish influences through Baroque portraiture’s balance of realism and idealisation. Its royal subject connects sculpture with England’s tradition of commemorating monarchs. After the Revolution of 1688 deposed James II, many Flemish artists left London for their home countries. This Westminster monument preserves a meeting point between royal history and an international seventeenth-century workshop.

City: City of Westminster
Content updated: 2026-06-22

Image: Prioryman CC BY-SA 4.0
Image: N. Smith, 13 May 1791, 18 G Mays BuildingsPublic domain
Image: York & Son (Frederick York, 1823 - 1903; William York 1855 - 1931)Public domain
Image: J. MaurierPublic domain
Image: T. Lester. Finsbury Place. 1 December 1816.Public domain

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