CHANTREY, chadtri, SIR Francis Legatt, English sculptor : b. Jordanthorpe, Derbyshire, 7 April 1781; d. 25 Nov. 1841. The chief amusement of his boyhood was in modeling figures in clay and drawing likenesses and at his own request he was apprenticed in 1797 to a carver and gilder at Sheffield. Here he at tracted the attention of J. Raphael Smith, a mezzotinto engraver and portrait-painter, who, perceiving his decided inclination for drawing and modeling, gave him instructions, which tended greatly to prepare him for his future career. He then set up as a portrait-painter. By 1802 he was resident in London, studying at the Royal Academy. Having acquired much reputation as a sculptor, he became the success ful candidate for the marble bust which the inhabitants of Sheffield had resolved to erect to the memory of the Rev. J. Wilkinson (1805-06). This interesting work, which may be said to have finally decided his future course, is in Sheffield Parish Church. Having settled per manently in London, he presented numerous busts at the exhibitions of the Royal Academy. About the same time he was a successful candi date for a statue of George III for the city of London, and soon was almost universally regarded as the first monumental sculptor of the day. In 1815 he was chosen an associate and in 1818 a member of the Royal Academy. In 1819 he visited Italy, where he was elected member of the academies of Rome and Florence. He was knighted in 1835. His most
celebrated works are the 'Sleeping Children,' a monument erected to two children of the Rev. W. Robinson, in Lichfield Cathedral; the statue of Lady Louisa Russell, daughter of the Duke of Bedford, in Woburn Abbey; Lady Frederica Stanhope with her infant child, in (levering Church; Sir Joseph Banks, at the British Museum • Roscoe and Canning, at Liver pool Town Hall; James Watt, at Glasgow; the bronze statue oWilliam Pitt, in Hanover square, London i and statues of Horner, Sir J. Malcolm, etc., in Westminster Abbey, and a statue of Washington in the State House at Boston, Mass. His finest works are his busts, among the best of them being Sir Walter Scott, James Watt, Wordsworth and Porson. His full-length figures are said to betray an insufficient acquaintance with anatomy, and sev eral of his equestrian statues in bronze are still more defective. The postures are formal, and the horses, in their bodies and limbs are very inanimate. He made munificent bequests, amounting to f150,000, for the advancement of art, the Royal Academy being endowed with a large fund known as the Chantrey Bequest for the purchase of works of sculpture and painting by artists residing in Great Britain. See by Jones (1849); and Raymond (1904).