(b Hepton, Suffolk, 1811 or 1812; d London, 14 March 1895). English sculptor. He enrolled at the Royal Academy in 1829 and attracted attention there with The Eagleslayer (1837), of which versions were made in bronze, marble (c. 1844; Wentworth Woodhouse, S. Yorks) and iron (1851; London, Bethnal Green Mus. Childhood). The latter, cast by the Coalbrookdale Company, was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851, placed under a canopy with the slain eagle at the top. Prestigious commissions followed, including statuary for the Houses of Parliament: Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland (marble, 1848) and Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (marble, 1854). Bell's best-known public sculptures are the Guards' Crimean War memorial (bronze, 1860; London, Waterloo Place) and America, part of the Albert Memorial (marble, 1864-9; London, Kensington Gdns). Both show his stylistic and iconographic compromise between Neo-classical tradition and meticulous contemporary realism. Bell's works on imagined subjects, many of which were reproduced in Parian porcelain by W. T. Copeland and by Henry Cole's Art-Manufactures, include Babes in the Wood (marble, 1842; London, V&A); Andromeda (bronze, c. 1851; Osborne House, Isle of Wight, Royal Col.); and The Octoroon (marble, 1868; Blackburn, Town Hall), the eroticism of which was influenced by Hiram Powers. Bell was more innovative as an industrial designer than as an artist. His creations include fish-knives, a table supported by cast-iron deerhounds (1845) for the Coalbrookdale Company, a matchbox shaped like a crusader's tomb (1848) and a cast-iron Cerberus doorstop (1849). He was a prolific correspondent and also published some essays, including 'Colour on Statues and Paintings' (1861), 'The Principle of Entasis as Applied to the Obelisk' (1862) and 'The Lost Venus of Knidos' (1894).
See the Abbreviations for further details.
