Details of Sculptor

Surname

Wessel

Alternative Surname

First Name

Gerhard George

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

1744

Flourished

Year of Death

1811

Biographical Details

He was born in Hollenstede and studied in Berlin before coming to England in 1773, encouraged by King George III. He entered the Royal Academy Schools on 31 December 1773 and was awarded a silver medal three years later (3). He exhibited at the RA, 1781-87, from 10 Little Titchfield Street and 8 Upper Marylebone Street, showing wax portraits and a figure of Argos in terracotta (1).
In 1787 he left England for Osnabrück, and in the following year the decorative artist Vernona wrote to the Hofmarschall, Count von Münster, that ‘Her Royal Highness has just told me to inform you that she has sent from London to Osnabrück a very accomplished sculptor named Wessel; he has worked for fourteen years in London, but is a native of Osnabrück and prefers to work here’. Wessel was employed under Vernona, but his chief collaborator was the architect Hollenberg. He carried out a good deal of work at the Royal palace in Osnabrück, which then belonged to the English Crown, and various reliefs and wax portraits by him are now in the local museum.
Literary References: Hutchison 1960-62, 140; Gunnis 1968, 420; Pyke 1973, 156