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The Titanic's Famous Cherub

The colorized photo above shows the elegant bronze and gilt cherub of the Titanic's forward Grand Staircase mounted on the central newel post at the bottom of the stairs. This cherub became more famous with the release of James Cameron's box office-breaking movie Titanic. It made the perfect romantic background character as Leonardo DiCaprio's, Jack Dawson, wooed Kate Winslet's, Rose, on the Grand Staircase. This large cherub is sometimes confused with a smaller cherub that was brought up from the ocean floor. Aside from its smaller scale, that less famous cherub was sculpted in a younger, "infant style" with straighter hair, not curly hair. The smaller cherub was rescued from the debris field (sans lamp and left foot) in an expedition of 1987. It was exhibited from February 2015 until Labor Day 2015 at the Titanic: Artifact Exhibit museum at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas.

It is believed that the First-Class staircases on Titanic  were identical to that of her sister ship Olympic.  Much of the sister ships interiors were designed and fitted by the same teams of craftsmen and artisans, as the two ships were constructed at nearly the same time. The interiors of the ships were designed by Aldam, Heaton & Co., who had previously worked on other White Star Line vessels and had also carried out interior design on the homes of White Star Line chairman J. Bruce Ismay and his family. Many of the ships' interiors were designed by the architect Arthur Henry Durand, who had studied architecture in Brussels in the early 1890s, and was involved with the design of the La Tour Eiffel in Paris. He worked for both the White Star Line and the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company.

Actually these photos were all taken of the Olympic's staircase elements, since no known photos from the Titanic's  Grand Staircase exist. It is believed that the Belfast ship builder, Harland and Wolff, saw no reason to photograph the Titanic's interiors since they had already gone through this expense for her virtual twin, the RMS Olympic.

Palace of Versailles Prototype

In La Belle Époque, it was common to look to France's palaces for inspiration. Both the interior and exterior of Versailles were rich with sculptural examples. The RMS Titanic cherub was clearly based on a figure with cornucopia-styled torch found in a trio grouping of children at a corner of one of the vast rectangular reflecting ponds known as The Water Parterres or Le Parterre d'Eau (The Water Terrace). The Olympic Class ships gained the benefits of the brilliant designer of much of Versailles' painting and sculpture, Charles Le Brun, and the modeling by sculptor Pierre Granier. Titanic's sculptor modified the torch to hold a glass flambeau shade fitted with an electric lamp. From 1687 to 1694, the Keller brothers, founders, cast the bronzes for The Water Terrace, in the Arsenal of Paris.