Born in Nottingham, John Charles Felix Rossi was apprenticed to the Italian sculptor Locatelli before joining the Royal Academy Schools in 1781. Following a travelling studentship in Rome, he returned to London and carved two lions for the western watergate of Somerset House, as well as working with Eleanor Coade and John Bingley. His career peaked at the turn of the century when he received commissions for sculpting military heroes of ther Napoleonic wars for display at St Paul's Cathedral. One of them, the Cornwallis monument, can be found today in the chapel at Audley End, Essex. Although his fellow sculptors did not regard him very highly (including those whom he had beaten to the St Paul's commissions!), he nevertheless proved quite prolific. A bust of James Wyatt can be found in the National Portrait Gallery, and the striking caryatids at St Pancras New Church were also his work, although they had to be truncated due to a measurement error. Towards the end of his life he suffered financial difficulties, possibly due to his fathering sixteen children, and although he had sons who followed him into the same trade, he bequeathed them 'nothing but his fame' (obit., Art Union). Other examples of his sculpture include the 'Seasons' frieze below the pediment of Buckingham Palace, classical sculptures at the gallery of Petworth House, Sussex, and the 1802 figure of Brittania on the dome of Liverpool Town Hall.
Born in Nottingham, John Charles Felix Rossi was apprenticed to the Italian sculptor Locatelli before joining the Royal Academy Schools in 1781. Following a travelling studentship in Rome, he returned to London and carved two lions for the western watergate of Somerset House, as well as working with Eleanor Coade and John Bingley. His career peaked at the turn of the century when he received commissions for sculpting military heroes of ther Napoleonic wars for display at St Paul's Cathedral. One of them, the Cornwallis monument, can be found today in the chapel at Audley End, Essex. Although his fellow sculptors did not regard him very highly (including those whom he had beaten to the St Paul's commissions!), he nevertheless proved quite prolific. A bust of James Wyatt can be found in the National Portrait Gallery, and the striking caryatids at St Pancras New Church were also his work, although they had to be truncated due to a measurement error. Towards the end of his life he suffered financial difficulties, possibly due to his fathering sixteen children, and although he had sons who followed him into the same trade, he bequeathed them 'nothing but his fame' (obit., Art Union). Other examples of his sculpture include the 'Seasons' frieze below the pediment of Buckingham Palace, classical sculptures at the gallery of Petworth House, Sussex, and the 1802 figure of Brittania on the dome of Liverpool Town Hall.
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