Edward Hodges
Baily
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(March 10, 1788 - May 22, 1867) - (sometimes
misspelled Bailey) was an English sculptor who was born in Bristol.
Some of his descendants still live in Bristol today and a sculpture
of 'Eve at the Fountain' can be found in the Bristol City Museum and
Art Gallery.
His father, who was
a celebrated carver of figureheads for ships, destined him for a
commercial life, but even at school the boy showed his natural taste
and talents by producing numerous wax models and busts of his
schoolfellows. At the age of fourteen Baily was placed in a
mercantile house, where he worked for the next two years, though he
still felt a strong leaning towards his artistic abilities. At
the age of sixteen he abandoned his commercial career and began
executing portraits in wax. Two Homeric studies, executed for a
friend, were shown to John Flaxman, who bestowed on them such high
commendation that in 1807 Baily came to London and placed himself as
a pupil under the great sculptor. In 1809 he entered the Royal
Academy Schools.
In 1811 he gained the Royal Academy gold medal for a model of
Hercules restoring Alcestis to Admetus, and soon after exhibited
Apollo discharging his Arrows against the Greeks and Hercules
casting Lichas into the Sea. He was elected ARA in 1817 and RA in
1821 when he exhibited one of his best pieces, Eve at the Fountain.
He was entrusted with the carving of the bas-reliefs on the south
side of the Marble Arch in Hyde Park, and executed numerous busts
and statues of public figures, including the prominent, well-known
statue of Nelson, at the top of Nelson's Column, in Trafalgar
Square. In 1857, the year of his retirement from the Royal Academy,
he also designed a Turner Gold Medal for Landscape Painting.
Baily's election as
a fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) came in 1842. Amongst his pupils
was William Theed (1804-1891), a leading Victorian sculptor who
produced a number of portrait busts and the large group sculpture
‘’Africa’’ for the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens. Among
Baily's assistants were Musgrave Watson (1804-1847) and Joseph
Durham ARA (1814-1877).
Financial
insecurity was a recurring theme in his life. He was first declared
bankrupt in 1831, and again in 1838. On the first occasion questions
were asked in Parliament on his behalf because his financial
distress had resulted from delays in receiving payment for
sculptures at Buckingham Palace. Fortunately his appeals to the
Royal Academy for financial assistance, were successful in the
1830s, as again in the 1860s, when they provided him with a pension
of £200 a year as an honorary retired RA.
