PTI
London, Updated At : 04:00 AM Dec 07, 2025 IST
A small bronze model of the Mahatma Gandhi sculpture from central London’s Tavistock Square will be auctioned in England next week with a guide estimate of £6,000–£8,000. The 27-cm maquette is believed to be the earliest complete vision of the statue by Polish sculptor Fredda Brilliant, whose full-size work has stood in Tavistock Square since 1968.
In September the plinth was daubed with “racially aggravated” graffiti and was cleaned ahead of Gandhi Jayanti on October 2. Woolley & Wallis of Wiltshire said Fredda Brilliant first conceived the idea of a Gandhi sculpture in 1949, but was not commissioned for the Tavistock memorial until the early 1960s.
She initially explored three poses — Gandhi standing, walking and the seated cross-legged pose offered here — the latter she described as “traditional and intimate, suited to the small but beautiful (Tavistock) square.” After settling on that pose she produced the customary metal maquette. This is the first of two such maquettes being offered at next Thursday’s auction; a second sold in June 2019 for £65,000 to a private collector.
“Given Fredda’s growing reputation and the fierce bidding we’ve seen for her Gandhi works in the past, the emergence of this first maquette from a private London collection is significant,” said Victor Fauvelle, a specialist at Woolley & Wallis. “It offers collectors an exceptional chance to secure the piece that set one of Fredda’s most internationally recognised monuments and sculptures in motion.”
The bronze sculpture, created with backing from the India League, was unveiled as a nod to Gandhi’s days as a law student at nearby University College London. It depicts Gandhi in a meditative cross-legged pose, with the plinth inscribed “Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948.” Gandhi Jayanti, designated by the United Nations as the International Day of Non-Violence, is marked at the London monument each October 2 with floral tributes and Gandhi’s favourite bhajans.
