Steell, SIR JOHN, R.S.A.

Steell, SIR JOHN, R.S.A., sculptor, was born at Aberdeen in 1804, the son of a carver and gilder. He received his education as an artist at the Edinburgh Academy, and afterwards at Rome. In 1832 he modelled 'Alexander and Bucephalus,' which, however, was not cast in bronze until 1883, being erected in Edinburgh the year after. The promise of this early work he subsequently fulfilled. Most of his chief works are in Edinburgh: the colossal figure of the Queen crowning the front of the Royal Institution, which procured him the honorary appointment of Sculptor to Her Majesty in Scotland; the statue of Scott in the Scott Monument; the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington (1852); statues of Professor Wilson, Allan Ramsay (1865), and Dr Chalmers (1878); and the equestrian statue of Prince Albert, at the inauguration of which in 1876 Steell was knighted. Other works, in bronze or marble, are statues of Admiral Saumarez in Greenwich Hospital; of the Marquis of Dalhousie at Calcutta; of Sir Walter Scott (1872) at New York; and of Burns at New York (1873), Dundee, and London. He died 15th September 1891.