Where's this statue located?

Factual Questions
1

Just for fun I’m trying to find out where this old picture was taken.

If you click the link you’ll see my grandpa and some dude in front of a statue of a man. The quality isn’t great, so even at original resolution (top left) it’s difficult to figure out who the statue actually is. The first name is certainly Robert, the surname might be Lee, but could also have two more letters and be something else, and on first look the years seem to read 1769-1756, which has got to be wrong.

The location could be somewhere in Vancouver, or elsewhere in that general area, but it could also be somewhere else completely in either Canada or the US.

Any dopers know the statue or have better images enhancing and googling skills than I?

2

I agree that the name looks like Robert Lee, however I read the dates at 1769 - 183?.

And the name might not actually be Robert Lee. It seems like, if the name is centred over the dates, then “Lee” would be too short. Maybe there’s a letter or two missing or just not showing up?

3

It is a statue of Robert Burns in Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC

4

Arg!! I knew this, probably the only location specific answer I will ever be likely to give and you beat me by minutes! In any case, you’re right.

5

Ah well, too slow and I was way off with the dates too! 1759 - 1796, clearly…

6

This is why I cough up the $15 every year. No amount of google-fu can match the general knowledge of 60,000 people worldwide.

7

It might the Vault Zero talking, but I am incredibly amazed by this. From question to answer in 22 minutes.

That’s just… awesome. I’ve been a member here longer than most, and I’m still amazed at some of the things I read on here.

8

It doesn’t suprise me a bit.

Hat tricks like this happen all the time here.

Well worth the subscription fee.

9

Thanks! I’d never have been able to decrypt that last name as Burns, although I might at some point have had the sense to google “Statue Vancouver Robert” and get that link as the first hit. :smack:

Looks like they’ve added some more information to the statue since grandpa was there in the late 1920s.

Man, now I want to go to Vancouver and get my picture taken in that same spot. :smiley:

10

The sculptor seems to have gone to some effort to make sure we know that Burns was nicely endowed, and that he dressed on the left.

11

There’s a grave at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris which is notorious for a similar reason. The deceased was a nondescript 19th C. French civil servant, but his grave topper [I can’t recall the proper term for it] has a life-sized, full-length sculptural relief of the dead guy in bronze, clothed, but with a very notable bulge in the crotch. For a while, some cleric was trying to get the sculptor to amend his handiwork, but for one reason or another the bronze relief was ultimately installed in all its original glory.

Over the years, it became the custom for lonely women to visit the grave and give the ol’ boy a rub for good luck. The practice caught on. So many of the “Miss Lonelyhearts” were doing this that they had rubbed away the verdigris patina in the crotch, so that the bulge was now conspicuously shiny, as well as prominent.

I’ve seen this on the 'net before (and yes, the crotch was still shiny!), but some casual Googling failed to turn it up.

12

They put a fence up around that statue… too bad :smiley:

ETA: a better pic… http://www.raingod.com/angus/Gallery/Photos/Europe/France/Paris/images/VictorNoir03.jpg

13

Thank god I’m not the only one that noticed. If I ever have a statue made of me, I’ll tip the sculpture up front.

14

Oh please, it’s a codpiece, boys. It was merely the fashion of the day.

15

I think Fear Itself has earned this.

16

Victor Noir lived in the 1800’s, well after the fashionability of the codpiece.