John Zephaniah Bell

John Zephaniah Bell (1794–1883) was a Scottish artist.

Self-portrait from the 1820s

Life

He was born in Dundee, where his father William Bell was a tanner, businessman and banker; James Stanislaus Bell was his brother. He studied at the University of Edinburgh, and then went to London where he was a pupil of Martin Archer Shee.^[1][2][3]

Bell studied under Antoine-Jean Gros in Paris, and was in Rome for over a year from 1825. He was portrait painter to Maria II of Portugal, and assistant to David Wilkie. He married Jane Graham Hay Campbell in 1831.^[2][4]

Bell became head of the Manchester School of Design when it was set up in 1838.^[2][5] He resigned in 1843 and was succeeded by George Wallis.^[6]

Works

Portrait miniatures of The Count and Countess of Linhares, by John Zephaniah Bell, 1823

In Paris, Bell met David Ogilvy, 9th Earl of Airlie, who became a patron and had him decorate Cortachy Castle.^[2] He showed paintings at the Royal Academy and Royal Manchester Institution in the period 1824 to 1865.^[7] Frescoes in the Muirhouse mansion in Edinburgh impressed Wilkie.^[8] Bell won a prize in the Westminster Hall fresco competition of 1842.^[2][5]

Bell was a Sandemanian and painted a portrait of Michael Faraday, of the same church.^[9] The attribution to Bell of John Gubbins Newton and His Sister, Mary Newton has been withdrawn.^[10]