John Steell

Sir John Robert Steell RSA (Aberdeen 18 September 1804 – 15 September 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 base of the Scott Monument.

Steell was born in Aberdeen, but his family moved to 5 Calton Hill in Edinburgh in 1806. He was one of the thirteen children (eleven surviving beyond infancy) of John Steell senior (1779-1849), a carver and guilder, and Margaret Gourlay, the daughter of William Gourlay, a Dundee shipbuilder. As the family grew they moved to a larger house at 20 Calton Hill. Due to his father's own fame as a sculptor, for much of his early working career he is referred to as John Steel Junior.

Steell initially followed his father, training to be a carver himself, being apprenticed in 1818. In 1819 his father was declared bankript by the Trades of Calton, bringing much shame on the family. However, John junior showed artistic talent, and despite this, the family sent him to study art at the Trustees Academy in Edinburgh, under Andrew Wilson.

Working with his father from studios at 6 Hanover Street his first major step came in 1827 when the North British Fire Insurance Company, at 1 Hanover Street, commissioned a huge timber statue of St Andrew to be placed on the outside of their office. The work appears closely based on a sketch of a statue of St Andrew in Rome by François Duquesnoy. As the office stood immediately opposite the Royal Scottish Academy it was quickly noticed by Edinburgh's artistic society, and acknowledged as a fine work. In 1829, spurred on by the success of this work, he travelled to Rome to study sculpture more intensely.

The first work to attract international attention was Alexander taming Bucephalus carved in 1832–33 (cast in bronze in 1883, and now standing in the quadrangle of Edinburgh City Chambers). Around 1838 he was appointed as Sculptor to Her Majesty the Queen, a post which was later recognised as part of the Royal Household in Scotland. In 1840 he opened Scotland's first foundry on Grove Street in Edinburgh, dedicated to sculpture, in order to cast his statue of Wellington himself.

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