John Steell

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Sir John Robert Steell (1804 - 1891) was a Scottish sculptor. He is best known for a number of sculptures displayed in Edinburgh, including the statue of Sir Walter Scott at the Scott Monument. His portrait was painted by Robert Scott Lauder.

Steell was born in Aberdeen, one of the eleven children of John Steell senior, an Edinburgh carver and guilder, and Margaret Gourlay, the daughter of William Gourlay Dundee shipbuilder. Steell initially followed his father, training to be a carver himself. He showed artistic talent, and so studied art at the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh and then studied sculpture in Rome. On his return he opened Scotland's first foundry dedicated to sculptures, and was commissioned for numerous works, particularly statues and monuments in Edinburgh. He exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy, and was knighted in 1876 following the unveiling, by Queen Victoria, of his statue The Prince Consort.

Sir John Steell's brother Gourlay Steell was himself a noted painter: he was Queen Victoria's animal painter, taking over from Sir Edwin Landseer. Many of Gourlay Steell's paintings remain in the private collection of Queen Elizabeth II.

John Steell is buried in an unmarked grave in Edinburgh's Old Calton cemetery. this grave was purchased by his father John Steell snr and many of the Steell and Gourlay families are also laid to rest there.

[edit] Works

the Iron Duke in bronze by John Steell with the Balmoral Hotel in the background.

Steell's works include:

a white Carrara marble statue of novelist Sir Walter Scott, the centrepiece of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens
an bronze equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington outside Register House in Edinburgh. When it was unveiled the press dubbed the statue "the Iron Duke in bronze by Steell"
a bronze bust of Florence Nightingale, on display at London's National Portrait Gallery
a bust of Thomas de Quincey
the statue Alexander taming Bucephalus in the courtyard in front of Edinburgh's City Chambers
a statue of Lord Dalhousie in Calcutta
a statue of Allan Ramsay
a seated statue of the poet Robert Burns in Central Park, New York City
a monument to soldiers from the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders regiment who fell in the Crimean War, situated in Glasgow Cathedral
a statue of early parliamentarian George Kinloch in Dundee
a stone statue of Queen Victoria at Edinburgh's Royal Institution
busts of Lord Cockburn and Lord Jeffrey
a bronze bas relief funerary panel of Lord and Lady Rutherfurd, and later a marble bust of Lady Rutherfurd, modelled after her death mask
a statue of Prince Albert (entitled The Prince Consort) in Charlotte Square in Edinburgh