Baron Carlo Marochetti
(1805-1867)
31 March 1861

Volume 3, page 27, sitting number 2807.

The Italian sculptor Carlo Marochetti had an internationally successful career; he was made a baron in his native country, awarded the Legion of Honour in France, and patronised by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in England, where he worked from 1848. His dramatic style, exemplified in his equestrian statue of Richard the Lionheart (1851-60) outside the Houses of Parliament, was however considered rather flashy in England. A miniature copy of the statue, in bronze, appears next to Marochetti in this portrait.

Among his many other notable works are the equestrian statue of Queen Victoria in George Square, Glasgow; the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington outside the former Royal Exchange in the same city; the statue of Robert Stephenson in Euston Station; and the statue of Isambard Kingdom Brunel on Victoria Embankment. The Angel of the Resurrection, which once stood at the centre of the Cawnpore Memorial in India, was also his work. In his native Turin he was responsible for the equestrian statue of Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Savoy, in Piazza San Carlo; and the equestrian statue of King Carlo Alberto of Sardinia in Piazza Carlo Alberto. 

When the Albert Memorial was built on the south side of Hyde Park, opposite the Royal Albert Hall, Marochetti was given the commission to produce the seated figure of the late Prince Consort that would sit at its centre. However, his first design was rejected by the architect, George Gilbert Scott, and Marochetti died in Paris on 29 December 1867 before he could submit a second version.