Statue of Peter Pan

The Peter Pan statue is a bronze sculpture of J. M. Barrie's character Peter Pan. It was commissioned by Barrie and made by Sir George Frampton. The original statue is displayed in Kensington Gardens in London, to the west of The Long Water, close to Barrie's home on Bayswater Road. Barrie's stories were inspired in part by the gardens: the statue is located at the place where Peter Pan lands in Barrie's book The Little White Bird after flying out of his nursery. Six other casts made by the original artist have been erected in other locations around the world.

The sculpture stands about 14 feet (4.3 m) high. It has a tall conical form, like a tree stump, topped by a young boy, approximately life size for an eight year old, wearing a nightshirt and blowing a thin musical instrument like a trumpet or flute, sometimes interpreted as pan pipes. The sides of the stump are decorated with small figures of squirrels, rabbits, mice, and fairies. Barrie had intended the boy to be based on a photograph of Michael Llewelyn Davies wearing a Peter Pan costume, but Frampton chose another model, possibly James W. Shaw or William A. Harwood.

A completed plaster model of the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in May 1911. Barrie had the original bronze erected in London on 30 April 1912, without fanfare and without permission, so that it might appear to children that the fairies had put it in place overnight. He published a notice in The Times newspaper the following day, 1 May: "There is a surprise in store for the children who go to Kensington Gardens to feed the ducks in the Serpentine this morning. Down by the little bay on the south-western side of the tail of the Serpentine they will find a May-day gift by Mr J.M. Barrie, a figure of Peter Pan blowing his pipe on the stump of a tree, with fairies and mice and squirrels all around. It is the work of Sir George Frampton, and the bronze figure of the boy who would never grow up is delightfully conceived."

He donated the sculpture to the city of London, although some critics objected to him advertising his works by erecting a sculpture in a public park without permission. It became a Grade II* listed building in 1970. A plaque was unveiled by Princess Margaret in 1997.

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