John Bell

John Bell (1812–1895) was a British sculptor, born in Bell's Row, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. His family home was Hopton Hall, Suffolk. His works were shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and he was responsible for the marble group representing "America" on the Albert Memorial in London. Life John Bell was born at Hopton Hall Hopton, Suffolk in 1812, and educated in the village school in Catfield, Norfolk. He studied sculpture in the Royal Academy Schools from 1829, and exhibited his first work at the academy, a religious group, in 1832. The next year he exhibited A Girl at a Brook and John the Baptist at the academy, and two statuettes at the Suffolk Street Gallery, followed by Ariel in 1834. At the Royal Academy in 1836 he showed Psyche feeding a Swan and Youth, Spring, and Infancy. In 1837, the year in which Bell established his reputation, his works at the Academy included Psyche and the Dove and a model of The Eagle-Shooter, the first version of what was to become one of his most celebrated statues; he also exhibited two busts, Amoret and Psyche, at the British Institution. His Babes in the Wood was exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition two years later. There are marble versions at Osborne House, and Norwich Castle.