Café Majestic

Eros

Despite what your web guide to Piccadilly Circus says, ‘Eros’ is actually his twin brother Anteros, ‘The God of Selfless Love’. It is NOT The Angel of Christian Charity. It is NOT made from lead - and it was never gold! It WAS the world’s first public aluminium statue - its light weight allowing the pose on one leg. If it was lead or gold it would collapse.
It is also unfair to say that sculptor Sir Alfred Gilbert RA had his work 'derided when unveiled in 1893, sending the sculptor into early retirement' - a claim also made in the Lonely Planet guide to London. The nudity of the figure caused controversy - not derision - and Gilbert worked until shortly before his death in 1934. Anteros was unveiled in 1893. It is true he semi-retired to Bruges for a while around the 1900s, but that was mainly due to his poor management of his finances - a habit common to many artists.
http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/gilbert/index.html