BACON, JOHN (174o-1799), British sculptor, was born in Southwark on Nov. 24 1740, the son of Thomas Bacon, a cloth worker, and apprenticed at 14 in Crispe's porcelain manufactory at Lambeth. Here he was at first employed in painting the small ornamental pieces of china, but soon became modeller to the works. During his apprenticeship he improved the method of working statues in artificial stone, an art which he afterwards carried to perfection. Bacon first attempted working in marble about the year 1763, and improved the method of transferring the form of the model to the marble (technically "getting out the points") by the invention of a more perfect instrument for the purpose. This instrument was more exact, took a correct measurement in every direction, was contained in a small com pass, and could be used upon either the model or the marble. In the year 1769 he won the first gold medal for sculpture given by the Royal Academy, his work being a bas-relief representing the escape of Aeneas from Troy. In 1770 he exhibited a figure of Mars, which gained him the gold medal of the Society of Arts and his election as A.R.A. He was then engaged to execute a bust of George III., intended for Christ Church, Oxford. He died on Aug. 4 and was buried in Whitfield's Tabernacle. His work may be studied in St. Paul's cathedral, London, Christ Church and Pembroke college, Oxford, the Abbey church, Bath, and Bristol cathedral. Perhaps his best works are to be found among the monuments in Westminster Abbey.
See Richard Cecil, Memoirs of John Bacon, R.A. (180i) ; and also Vol. i. of R. Cecil's works, ed. J. Pratt (I8I I) .