Puzzlement aplenty down at Newington Green today as the locals gathered for their first view of the newly unveiled Mary Woollstonecraft statue.

Unveiled is certainly the right word, though some observers had a few different ones. Mostly “What is it?” and “Why is she so small?” and even “Is it a side of beef?” 

Barely five or six feet high, its main body, as it were, apparently represents intertwined female figures in what seems to be chrome, atop a black marble plinth.

The tiny figure at the top, just eight or nine inches high, sports a massive bush and nothing else. It is, says Maggi Hambling, not Mary herself but Everywoman.

I think it’s fair to say opinion is so far divided as to its merits.