Bacon, John (2)

an eminent English sculptor, was born at Southwark, in Surrey, Nov. 24, 1740. At the age of fourteen he was bound as an apprentice to a china- manufacturer. where he first was employed to paint the ware, but, discovering a taste for modelling, he was soon employed for this purpose, and in less than two years he modelled all the figures for the manufactory.

He progressed rapidly, and received nine premiums from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, etc.-the first in 1758 for a figure of Peace. In 1768 he began to work in marble, and invented an instrument, now in general use by English sculptors, for transferring the form of the model to the marble. In 1776 he received the first gold medal from the Royal Academy, and in 1770 was elected an associate of that institution. He was commissioned to execute a bust of the king for the hall of Christ College, Oxford, which won him the royal patronage. In 1777 he executed the monument to the memory of Guy, the founder of Guy's Hospital, which was considered so admirable that the city of-London engaged him to erect a monument to the earl of Chatham. In 1778 he was elected Royal Academician, and completed the beautiful monument to the memory of Mrs. Draper in the cathedral church at Bristol. He had several other principal works in Westminster Abbey and in St. Paul's Cathedral. He died in London, Aug. 7, 1799.