John Zephaniah Bell (1794–1883) was a Scottish artist.
Life
He was born in Dundee, where his father William Bell was a tanner, businessman and banker; James Stanislaus Bell was his brother. He studied at the University of Edinburgh, and then went to London where he was a pupil of Martin Archer Shee.
Bell studied under Antoine-Jean Gros in Paris, and was in Rome for over a year from 1825. He was portrait painter to Maria II of Portugal, and assistant to David Wilkie. He married Jane Graham Hay Campbell in 1831.
Bell became head of the Manchester School of Design when it was set up in 1838. He resigned in 1843 and was succeeded by George Wallis.
Works
Portrait miniatures of The Count and Countess of Linhares, by John Zephaniah Bell, 1823In Paris, Bell met David Ogilvy, 9th Earl of Airlie, who became a patron and had him decorate Cortachy Castle. He showed paintings at the Royal Academy and Royal Manchester Institution in the period 1824 to 1865. Frescoes in the Muirhouse mansion in Edinburgh impressed Wilkie. Bell won a prize in the Westminster Hall fresco competition of 1842.
Bell was a Sandemanian and painted a portrait of Michael Faraday, of the same church. The attribution to Bell of John Gubbins Newton and His Sister, Mary Newton has been withdrawn.
Notes
- James Elton Bell; Frances Jean Bell (31 January 2007). Sir Robert Bell and His Early Virginia Colony Descendants: A Compilation of 16th, 17th, and 18th Century English and Scottish Families With the Surname Bell, Beale, Le Bel, Et Al. Wheatmark, Inc. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-58736-747-2. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
- ^ National Gallery (Great Britain), Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures. British schools (1896), p. 28, archive.org.
- Dmitry Fedosov; University of Aberdeen. Centre for Scottish Studies (1996). The Caledonian connection: Scotland-Russia ties : Middle Ages to early twentieth century : a concise biographical list. Centre for Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen. ISBN 978-0-906265-22-2., page 11.
- Stuart MacDonald (2004). History And Philosophy Of Art Education. James Clarke & Co. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-7188-9153-4. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
- ^ Martin Hewitt (25 January 2013). Victorian World. Routledge. p. 588. ISBN 978-0-415-49187-7. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
- Franz Bosbach; William Filmer-Sankey; Hermann Hiery (1 January 2000). Prinz Albert und die Entwicklung der Bildung in England und Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert / Prince Albert and the Development of Education in England and Germany in the 19th Century. Walter de Gruyter. p. 113. ISBN 978-3-11-095440-1. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
- Getty Research Library Catalog, Bell, John Zephaniah, 1794-1883.
- scottish-places.info, John Zephaniah Bell.
- Melville Y. Stewart (1 December 2009). Science and Religion in Dialogue, Two Volume Set. John Wiley & Sons. p. 347. ISBN 978-1-4443-1736-7. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
- thefreelibrary.com, Who was Robert Burnard?.