Early life and education Rossi was born on 8 March 1762 at
Nottingham, where his father Ananso, an Italian from
Siena, was a
quack doctor According to some sources the family later moved to
Mountsorrel in Leicestershire, On completing his apprenticeship he remained with his master for wages of 18 shillings a week, until he found more lucrative employment at
Coade and Seeley's artificial stone works at Lambeth. Rossi entered the
Royal Academy Schools in 1781. He won the silver medal in November of that year, and in 1784 the gold medal for a group showing
Venus conducting Helen to Paris. In 1785 he won the travelling studentship, and went to Rome for three years, during which he executed a
Mercury in marble, and a reclining figure of
Eve. In around 1790 he went into business in partnership with John Bingley, a London mason, producing work in a form of terracotta or
artificial stone. Their works included the statues of
Music and
Dancing for the
Assembly Rooms at Leicester (1796). Rossi later told
Joseph Farington that he had lost a large amount money through this enterprise. Between 1798 and 1810 Rossi leased premises in Marylebone Park (an area which later became Regent's Park), next to those of James Wyatt. They were described in the St Marylebone rate books as consisting of "A Cottage, Artificial Stone Manufactory and Stable etc." In 1800 Rossi made an artificial stone folly in the form of a "Hindu temple" at Melchet Park, near
Romsey to the designs of
Thomas Daniell. It was built a tribute to
Warren Hastings, and contained his bust, rising out of a lotus flower, on a pedestal. In 1800–2 he again used artificial stone for the colossal seated figure of
Minerva for the dome of
Liverpool Town Hall.
Royal Academy Rossi became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1798, and a full academician in 1802.
Monuments in St Paul's During the early years of the 19th century Rossi won several prestigious commissions for monuments to military and naval heroes to be set up in
St. Paul's Cathedral, including those to Captain Robert Faulkner (1803),
Marquis Cornwallis (1811),
Lord Rodney(1811–15) and
General Le Marchant (1812). Some of these were elaborate compositions in the grand manner; Cornwallis stands on a pedestal above the three figures representing Britannia and the rivers Begareth and Ganges, denoting the British empire in Asia. In the monument to Captain Faulkner, Neptune is seated on a rock, in the act of catching the naked figure of a dying sailor, while Victory is about to crown him with laurel. Lord Rodney is represented with allegorical figures of Fame and History. Among those working on these commissions in the studio were a young
J. G. Bubb. In the crypt of St Paul's, is Rossi's monument to Captain
James Robert Mosse and Captain Edward Riou.
Architectural sculpture In 1809 Rossi worked with
John Flaxman on two friezes for the facade of the
Covent Garden Theatre. He carved one, of
Ancient Drama, from a model by Flaxman. For the other, of
Modern Drama, he worked from Flaxman's drawings, making a model himself, before carving it in stone. For the south wing of the theatre, he made a seven-foot high statue of
Tragedy as a pendant to Flaxman's
Comedy. With his son Henry, Rossi was contracted to make the door surrounds, capitals, and other terracotta architectural decorations for
William and
Henry William Inwood's Greek revival
St Pancras New Church (1819–22). They were paid £4300 for the work. The decorations included two sets of
caryatids. Modelled on those at the
Erechtheum in Athens, they were built up in sections cemented around structural
cast-iron columns.
Elgin Marbles In 1816 Rossi was one of the experts questioned by a
select committee of the
House of Commons enquiring into whether the government should purchase the sculptures from the
Parthenon then in the possession of
Lord Elgin. He told the committee that the
Elgin Marbles were the best sculptures he had ever seen, superior both to the
Apollo Belvedere and the
Laocoön.
Later years Rossi owned a large house in
Lisson Grove. By 1817 his prosperity had declined, and he rented out part of it to the painter
Benjamin Robert Haydon, who was then temporarily solvent. Haydon was to remain Rossi's tenant until his imprisonment for debt in 1823. In 1818 he went into partnership with his former student
J. G. Bubb to provide a large number of sculptures for the new Customs House in London for which they used a composition material of their own design, a form of terracotta, but within six years the badly-constructed building had been demolished. and the
British Pugilist or
Athleta Britannicus (1828), a statue of a boxer, almost two metres tall, carved from a single piece of marble. He also executed a statue of the poet Thomson for Sir Robert Peel. The
Prince Regent appointed Rossi his sculptor, and employed him in the decoration of
Buckingham Palace, where he made chimneypieces, a frieze of the
Seasons to his own design, and others friezes to the designs of John Flaxman. He also made sculpture for the
Marble Arch, originally built as an entrance to the palace. When the planned height of the arch was reduced, some of Rossi's work became surplus to requirements, and was instead adapted for use on the new
National Gallery. Rossi was also sculptor in ordinary to William IV. which was located some way from the church, beside Hampstead Road,
Camden, London. ==References==