One of the honorary members of the Academy, William Calder Marshall, E.A., died in London on 16th June. Born in Edinburgh in 1813, where his father was a goldsmith, he was educated at the High School and the University. Having determined on being a sculptor he was for some time in the studios of Chantrey and Bailey. He afterwards proceeded to Rome, and studied there. On his return to Edinburgh he commenced practice as a sculptor, but in 1839 removed to London, where he finally settled, and his ability was soon recognised. He devoted himself largely to ideal and poetic sculpture, and received numerous commissions for such subjects from the Art Union of London, while engravings from his principal works appeared from time to time in the Art Journal. In the competition for the Wellington Memorial in St. Paul’s, to which many of the leading Sculptors contributed, Calder Marshall’s design was awarded the first premium (£700), although the design” by Stevens was afterwards adopted. Marshall, however, executed one-half of the series of relievos round the Chapel in which the Memorial was placed. Amongst the more important of his works are a group symbolical of Agriculture at the base of the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park. “The Dancing Girl Reposing,” “Eve,” “Sabrina,” and the “First Whisper of Love” His principal portrait statues are Lord Clarendon and Lord Somers in the Houses of Parliament, Sir Robert Peel in Manchester, Jenner in Kensington Gardens, and Campbell in West- minster Abbey.
Though long resident in London, Calder Marshall was a frequent exhibitor in the Annual Exhibition of the Koval Scottish Academy, where his works were highly appreciated. His colossal figure “Ajax praying for light,” exhibited in 1855, was presented afterwards to the Academy, and is now in the Museum of Science and Art, along with a number of the original models of his other works. He was elected an Associate of the Academy in 1840, but resigned on his election to the rank of Associate of the Koyal Academy in 1844, of which body he became an Academician in 1852. In recognition of his merits as a sculptor, the Eoyal Scottish Academy elected him an Honorary Member, and for services rendered in connection with the International Exhibition at Paris in 1878, he was nominated a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. [10-11]
Bibliography
Sixty=Seventh Annual Report of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Edinburgh: 1894. Internet Archive online version of a copy in the Getty Research Institute. Web. 30 September 2017.
Last modified 30 September 2017