La Delivrance
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La Delivrance is a 16-foot statue in bronze of a naked women holding a sword aloft, and is the work of the French sculptor Emile Guillaume. It is located at the southern edge of Finchley at Henley’s Corner, at the bottom of Regents Park Road (grid reference TQ247895). The statue has a number of local names including “Dirty Gertie”, “The Wicked Woman”, and most popular (to the exclusion of its real name) “The Naked Lady”. The statue was created as a celebration of the First Battle of the Marne when the German army was stopped from capturing Paris in August 1914. In 1920 Emile Guillaume exhibited the statue at the Paris Salon, where it was bought by Lord Rothermere (Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere). Lord Rothermere presented the statue to the Urban District of Finchley. However Finchley Council needed a war memorial, and intended placing the new statue at the main entrance of Finchley’s recreation ground Victoria Park. Lord Rothermere, incensed by this, informed Finchley that the statue was to be placed at its present location, so that he might see it when driving to see his mother, who lived at Totteridge, or the council couldn’t have it at all. The statue was unveiled on October 20, 1927, in front of a crowd, believed to have been around 8,000 people, by the then Prime Minister Lloyd George (picture). It is considered to be one of the most interesting pieces of public art in England.
