Joseph Bonomi
Born 9 October 1796
Died 3 January 1878
Active: 1819 - 1878
Country of birth and death: England
Sculptor, egyptologist, curator
Born in London. He was the son of Joseph Bonomi ARA (1739-1808), Italian architect. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools from 1816 and with the sculptor, Joseph Nollekens. In 1822 he travelled to Rome and met Joseph Hay who invited him to join an expedition to Egypt and record its findings. From 1824-34, Bonomi travelled extensively in Egypt and the Near East drawing and casting antiquities.
After his return to England in 1834 he illustrated books and made coloured plaster casts of Egyptian sculptures in the British Museum. He continued to sculpt and exhibit at the Royal Academy but this was secondary to his work as an Egyptologist. Bonomi mounted two panoramas at the Egyptian Hall, London in July 1849 (with Henry Warren and Joseph Fahey) and between 1852-3 he worked with the architect, Owen Jones, to create the Egyptian Hall at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. In 1857 he published a treaty entitled 'The Proportions of the Human Body' and collaborated on an unsuccessful proposal for the Wellington memorial. Bonomi was appointed curator of the Sir John Soane Museum in 1861. He died at his home in Wimbledon which was decorated with his last known work, a pair of reliefs entitled 'The Camels'.
Wealth at death: £8,000 0s. 0d.
Probate date: 1 May 1878
Personal and Professional Connections
Advisor to Charles Harriott Smith
Smith entered the Royal Academy Schools on the advice of Bonomi
Sources
A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851
2009
pp. 121-3
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966
2010
Name: Joseph Bonomi
Probate Date: 1 May 1878
Death Date: 3 Mar 1878
Death Place: Surrey, England
Registry: Principal Registry
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
2004
Peter Meadows, ‘Bonomi, Joseph (1796–1878)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2858, accessed 2 Feb 2010]
Citing this record
'Joseph Bonomi', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=ann_1291059632, accessed 29 Sep 2023]
