Alfred Gatley (1816 – 28 June 1863) was an English sculptor.

Life

Alfred Gatley was born at Kerridge, about two miles from

Macclesfield Macclesfield () is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. It is sited on the River Bollin and the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east; the town lies south of Ma ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, in 1816. As a child he learned the use of a stonemason's tools from his father, who owned and worked two quarries in the Kerridge hills. In 1837, helped by a few friends, he came to London and obtained employment in the studio of

Edward Hodges Baily Edward Hodges Baily (10 March 1788 – 22 May 1867; sometimes misspelled Bailey) was a prolific British sculptor responsible for numerous public monuments, portrait busts, statues and exhibition pieces as well as works in silver. He carved friez ...

. He also studied in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, and two years later became a student of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

, where he gained silver medals for modelling from the antique, and in 1841 for the first time exhibited a "Bust of a Gentleman". In 1843 Gatley left Baily and became an assistant to Musgrave Watson. That year he sent a marble bust of "Hebe" to the Royal Academy, which was purchased by the Art Union of London and reproduced in bronze. In 1844 he received the silver medal for the best model from the life, and exhibited marble busts of "

Cupid In classical mythology, Cupid ( , meaning "passionate desire") is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus and the god of war Mars. He is also known as Amor (Latin: ...

" and " Psyche", and in 1846 he exhibited a bust of Marshal Espartero, and a model in bas-relief of "The Hours leading out the Horses of the Sun", which went to the library of Britwell Court, Buckinghamshire. Also in 1846, his Memorial to John Whitaker was installed in

. In 1848 he sent to the Royal Academy a bust of John Sumner, archbishop of Canterbury, and in 1850 that of Samuel Christie-Miller, who became his close friend. About 1851 he executed a bust of

Richard Hooker Richard Hooker (25 March 1554 – 2 November 1600) was an English priest in the Church of England and an influential theologian.''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church'' by F. L. Cross (Editor), E. A. Livingstone (Editor) Oxford Univer ...

, now in the

Temple Church The Temple Church, a royal peculiar in the Church of England, is a church in the Inner Temple, Inner and Middle Temple, Middle Temple, London, Temples located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, built by the Knights Templar for their En ...

Although successful in this and other works, Gatley saw no prospect of earning an adequate income in England, and so went to Rome towards the end of 1852, where he took a studio on the

Pincian Hill The Pincian Hill ( ; ) is a hill in the northeast quadrant of the historical centre of Rome. The hill lies to the north of the Quirinal, overlooking the Campus Martius. It was outside the original boundaries of the ancient city of Rome, and was ...

, and made the acquaintance of John Gibson, whose enthusiasm for Greek art he shared. Before long he completed a bust of "

Alastor Alastor (; Ancient Greek: Ἀλάστωρ, English translation: "avenger") refers to a number of people and concepts in Greek mythology: *Alastor, an epithet of the Greek God Zeus, according to Hesychius of Alexandria and the ''Etymologicum Ma ...

, or the Spirit of Solitude", and began statues of "Echo" and "Night". A head in marble, "The Angel of Mercy", and a design for a mural monument were his contributions to the Royal Academy in 1853. Soon after Gatley's settlement in Rome, Samuel Christie-Miller invited him to prepare designs for the sculptural decorations of a mausoleum to be erected to the memory of William Henry Miller at

Craigentinny Craigentinny is a suburb in the north-east of Edinburgh, Scotland, east of Restalrig and Lochend. Its name may be a corruption of the Gaelic ''Creag an t-Sionnaich'', meaning "the fox's rock". History Previously moorland, the first major hou ...

, his estate near

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. Gatley produced a model of a large

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

representing " The Overthrow of Pharaoh in the Red Sea", which was highly praised by Gibson. Early in 1855 he was entrusted with the companion bas-relief, " The Song of Moses and Miriam". The Pharaoh bas-relief was finished in time for the

1862 International Exhibition The International Exhibition of 1862, officially the London International Exhibition of Industry and Art, also known as the Great London Exposition, was a world's fair held from 1 May to 1 November 1862 in South Kensington, London, England. Th ...

, but the 'Song of Miriam' was completed only just before the sculptor's death. In the judgement of Robert Edmund Graves, Gatley's ''DNB'' biographer, "The two bas-reliefs are in strong contrast to each other, the idea of rejoicing being as powerfully given in the one work as is that of fear and impending destruction in the other". Gatley visited England for the last time in 1862, but returned to Rome depressed by his failure to dispose of the works which he had sent to the International Exhibition, where, besides the bas-relief of "Pharaoh", he exhibited his statues of "Echo" and "Night", as well as four marble statuettes of recumbent animals—lions, a lioness, and a tiger—which had gained for him in Rome the name of the " Landseer of Sculpture". He died from dysentery at Rome on 28 June 1863, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery there.

Legacy

His portrait, painted by a Portuguese artist named Da Costa, used to be in the sculptor's old home at Kerridge. His statue of "Echo" is in the

Salford Museum and Art Gallery Salford Museum and Art Gallery, in Peel Park, Salford, Greater Manchester, opened to the public in November 1850 as the Royal Museum and Public Library. The gallery and museum are devoted to the history of Salford and Victorian art and archite ...

, and there also are a marble group of "A Boy leading a Bull to Sacrifice" (1861),The title given in the ''DNB''. In the ''ODNB'' the work is titled "A Greek Hero leading a Bull to Sacrifice" and busts of

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

copied in marble from antiques in the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Geography * Vatican City, an independent city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy * Vatican Hill, in Rome, namesake of Vatican City * Ager Vaticanus, an alluvial plain in Rome * Vatican, an unincorporated community in the ...

at Rome.

References

;Attribution

External links

Alfred Gatley: Sculptor, 1816–1863

Alfred Gatley - Mapping the Profession and Practice of Sculpture in Britain, 1851–1951

Alfred Gatley
in ''A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660–1851'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Gatley, Alfred 1816 births 1863 deaths Infectious disease deaths in Lazio English male sculptors 19th-century English sculptors 19th-century English male artists Deaths from dysentery