Nollekens, JOSEPH,

Nollekens, JOSEPH, was born in London, 11th August 1737, the son of a painter from Antwerp. Being placed in the studio of Scheemakers the sculptor, he made such progress that the Society of Arts repeatedly awarded him valuable prizes. In 1760 he settled in Rome. Garrick, whom he met there in the Vatican, immediately recognised his countryman as the young sculptor to whom the prizes had been awarded by the Society of Arts, sat to him for his bust, and paid him handsomely for it. He also executed in Rome a bust of Sterne in terra cotta, which added greatly to his reputation. After residing ten years in Rome he returned to London, where he set up his studio; and the reputation he had acquired in Rome was such that he immediately had full employment, and within a year after (in 1771) was elected an Associate of the Academy, and a Royal Academician the following year. His forte was in modelling busts; and through them he has handed down the likenesses of most of the important personages who figured in Great Britain in the end of the 18th and at the commencement of the 19th century—of Samuel Johnson, who was his friend and frequent visitor, of Fox, Pitt, and other political characters. George III. also sat to him. Besides busts, Nollekens executed numerous commissions for public monuments and statues. He also executed a number of classical and mythological statues and groups. He died in London, 23d April 1823, leaving no children to inherit a fortune of £200,000. See Life by J. T. Smith (1828; new ed. by Gosse, 1895).