3-017-333 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Statue of the late Right Hon. James Wilson, Finance Minister for India, by J. Steell, R.S.A, to be erected at Calcutta, 1865. 'A statue of the late Right Hon. James Wilson, one of the Secretaries of her Majesty's Treasury, and sometime Secretary to the Finance Department of the Government of India, has been executed by Mr. John Steell, R.S.A...Shortly after the melancholy death of Mr. Wilson, whose great administrative abilities had just begun to tell on the financial affairs of India when he was prematurely taken away, a subscription was entered into among the merchants of Calcutta for a memorial which should express the public sense entertained of his brief but valuable services...Mr. John Steell...has performed his task, as our Illustration will show, with remarkable success. The figure is a little larger than life, and has been cut from a fine block of Carrara marble. Mr. Wilson is represented in the act of expounding some of his schemes, and the expression of the face conveys the idea that he has just put forward some argument, and is pausing to observe its effect on those to whom he speaks. The attitude is erect, the left foot slightly advanced, and over the shoulders is loosely thrown a cloak, which falls in graceful folds behind'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.