A sculpture by an internationally recognised artist, which depicts a character from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, has found a new home at a spa hotel.
Mr Valiant for Truth, which was sculpted by Josefina de Vasconcellos (1904-2005), has been acquired by English Lakes Hotels and relocated to the gardens of its Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa, between Ambleside and Windermere.
The artwork had previously been at Lakeside YMCA for 30 years, with the hotel group moving to secure the statue in an effort to keep it in the Lake District.
The piece has strong links to the region: Ms de Vasconcellos moved to the Lake District during World War Two, and she lived much of her later life in the Langdale valley and in Ambleside.
Her protégé, Shawn Williamson, who was working with Ms de Vasconcellos when Mr Valiant for Truth was completed in 1983, is from Cumbria.
The piece is of French limestone, and was originally planned as a memorial for Ms de Vasconcellos' late husband, painter Delmar Banner.
Mr Williamson said: "When Mr Valiant for Truth was moved to Lakeside in 1985, I was working for Josefina as an assistant sculptor.
"The plan was to hoist it up by crane and set it out over Windermere to realise her husband’s vision of the man that looked over the burning lake in John Bunyan’s book Pilgrim’s Progress.
"I feel privileged to have helped carry out some of the work on the statue under her direction at the time."
Ms de Vasconcellos learned to carve at a stonemason’s yard in Manchester and went on to study at London’s Royal Academy of Arts on a scholarship.
Her sculptures have been exhibited at locations in the UK and beyond, including at the Royal Academy, St Paul's Cathedral, and the Paris Salon.
Reconciliation, originally installed at Coventry Cathedral and described by English Lakes Hotels as the artist's 'most internationally famous sculpture,' has seen subsequent versions established in Hiroshima’s Peace Park, at the Reichstag, Berlin, and on the Stormont Estate in Belfast.
English Lakes Hotels Resorts & Venues executive chairman, Simon Berry, said: "When we discovered that the search was on for a new installation site for Mr Valiant for Truth, we were determined to keep it here in the Lake District and give it a new home where it will be open to view for hotel guests and visitors to Low Wood Bay.
"My late father was a close friend of Josefina and I know he would be very pleased that this important work has now found this new home."
Ms de Vasconcellos was awarded an MBE in 1985.
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