Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Bell, John
BELL, John, sculptor, born in Norfolk, in 1811, exhibited at the Royal Academy, in 1832, a religious group, followed by "Psyche feeding a Swan," and other poetic works. In 1837 he exhibited the model of his "Eagle-slayer," a composition which was exhibited in Westminster Hall in 1844, and again at the International Exhibition in 1851. Reduced casts in bronze were subsequently executed for the Art Union. In 1841 he exhibited his well-known and beautiful figure of "Dorothea." The first statue which Mr. Bell was commissioned to execute for the new Houses of Parliament was that of "Lord Falkland." Among his other works, which are almost wholly of the poetic class, may be mentioned "The Babes in the Wood," in marble, now in the South Kensington Museum, an "Andromeda" (a bronze), purchased by the Queen, which formed leading attractions in the sculpture of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and "Sir Robert Walpole," in St. Stephen's Hall; also Miranda," "Imogen," "The Last Kiss," "The Dove's Refuge," "Herod Stricken on his Throne," "Lalage," "The Cross of Prayer," now so well known in the photographs of the Stereoscopic Company, "The Octoroon," "Una and the Lion," "Cromwell," "James Montgomery," the poet, at Sheffield, and various busts and statuettes. At Westminster Hall, in 1844, the sculptor appeared as a draughtsman with a cartoon, entitled, "The Angel of the Pillar," one of a series of "Compositions from the Liturgy," which have since been published. He executed the Wellington monument in Guildhall, with colossal figures of Peace and War; and the marble statue of Armed Science at Woolwich. Among his public works are the "Guards' Memorial" in Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, and the Crimean Artillery Memorial on the Parade at Woolwich. Mr. Bell, who is the author of a "Free-Hand Drawing Book for the Use of Artizans," "Primary Sensations of the Mind," "The Drama of Ivan," and various essays on art, has devoted some attention to decoration, having introduced, twenty-five years ago, the ornamental corn bread-platters in wood, and bread-knives, which have since become a trade, women and children being much employed in the carving of the platters and handles. Also in 1859 he received the medal of the Society of Arts for the origination of the principle of Entasis and definite proportions applied to the obelisk; and he was one of the sculptors employed in the completion of the Prince Consort Memorial in Hyde Park, his portion being the colossal group of the United States directing the progress of America, a large copy of which, in terra-cotta, stood in the centre of the Fine Arts Hall in the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, and has since been removed to Washington. A reduction to a statuette size of this group has been produced in bronze for Prizes of the Art Union of London. He is occupied in various works for town and country, which, however, are rarely exhibited except in the situation for which they are executed, as was the case with the marble statue of the late Earl of Clarendon, in the great hall of the Foreign Office, Downing Street. Mr. Bell has been for more than thirty years a resident in Kensington, where his house, garden, and studio are all in one. Here he still continues to execute a variety of works of the poetic class in marble, bronze, and terra-cotta. His marble statue of the Eagle-slayer is in the collection of Earl Fitzwilliam, at Wentworth, of which there is a cast in metal, in front of the South Kensington Museum. His Imogen is in the possession of Lord Coleridge, and his statue of Andromeda in the collection of Lord Truro; for whom also he is executing a life-sized statue of Eve. All these works are in marble.