ALFRED GEORGE STEVENS (1817-1875)

Description / Expertise

Alfred Stevens developed a single-minded devotion to art from an early age. In 1834, a member of the local cognoscent in his hometown of Blandford Forum recognized his genius and arranged for the twenty-five year old artist to travel to Italy. He stayed for nine years studying the frescoes and paintings of the Old Masters. In the early 1840s, after attending a design course at the Florentine Academy, he returned to London to enter the competitions set by the Houses of Parliament. In 1847, as a result of his post in Architecture, Perspective and Modelling at the Government School of Design at Somerset House, Stevens gained several commissions, the most important being the design for the doorcase and panel decoration of massive bronze doors for the newly built Geological Museum in Jermyn Street, London.

Stevens was a man of great ambition. Before 1856, he devised a grand programme of decoration for the dome of the British Museum's reading room. 1856 was, however, a turning point in Alfred Steven's development. It was the year in which he was to unwittingly to commit the rest of his life to his two masterpieces: the decoration of the dining room of Dorchester House and the Wellington monument for St Paul's Cathedral. A great many more of his schemes would have been carried out if he had only moderated, in his sketch designs at least, the grandeur of his conceptions. It is his `old master' drawings which have been sought after since his death. The largest collection is now in the Tate Gallery.(1)


1. Tate Gallery, The Works of Alfred Stevens, London 1950, p.xxii