Carlo Marochetti’s marble sculpture of Lord John Russell was made in 1858 during a period when Russell had temporarily retreated from political life to pursue his literary interests.
When this work was exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1858, a reviewer writing for the ‘Wells Journal’ referred to it as ‘a strikingly true bust of Lord John Russell’.
Born in Turin, sculptor Carlo Marochetti, Baron Marochetti first trained in Paris. During the 1820s he exhibited in Turin and at the Paris Salon (1827). His public commissions include sculptural reliefs for the Arc de Triomphe and La Madeleine church, Paris. He was best-known for historical subjects and figures but failed to complete an equestrian statue of Napoleon for the Emperor’s tomb at Les Invalides, Paris (1842). Marochetti moved to England in 1848, receiving commissions for portraits of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1859-61) and Robert Stephenson (1861). Although not officially appointed as Court sculptor, his many royal commissions include the tomb of Victoria and Prince Albert at Frogmore. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1866.
