Giuseppe Ceracchi (1751 - 1801)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

The Italian sculptor Giuseppe Ceracchi (1751–1801) studied in Rome and moved to London in 1773, where he worked for Agostino Carlini, a founder Member of the Royal Academy and fellow Italian. He made portrait busts of sitters including the RA President Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Admiral Keppel, but failed to win a commission for his projected monument to William Pitt the Elder in 1779. He also taught the sculptor Anne Seymour Damer.

In 1779 Ceracchi failed, for the second time, to be elected Associate Member of the Royal Academy. Perhaps as a result, he moved to continental Europe, working in Vienna, Amsterdam and Rome. Ceracchi travelled to Philadelphia in 1791, where he sculpted around 36 marble busts of eminent Americans including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. The following year Ceracchi returned to Europe, but in 1794 Ceracchi was back in Philadelphia, working on a revised version of a monument to George Washington. In 1795 he went to France, where he continued to receive commissions for marble busts. However, Ceracchi became involved in an anti-Napoleon conspiracy, and was executed by guillotine in 1801 after his involvement was discovered.