Giovanni Meli
Born 1815 (Circa)
Active: 1838 - 1861
Country of birth: Italy
Country of death: England
Sculptor, modeller, maker of parian ware
Born in Palermo, Sicily. Came to England in 1838, married in 1844 and was naturalised as a British citizen. He moved to Burslem in 1840 at the invitation of S. Alcock and worked there for two years. Following a quarrel, Meli moved to Stoke-on-Trent where he worked as a freelance modeller for Copeland and Garrett and other firms. Sometime in the late 1850s he established his own business which he sold to Robinson and Leadbetter in 1865.
Meli then returned to Italy and later emigrated to America. Two works by Meli are listed in the Art Inventories Catalog of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (http://siris-artinventories.si.edu): 'Immaculate Conception', gilded cast-iron, at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana and a 'Portrait Bust of a Man', plaster, in the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
There are some biographical details in Stuart, 'People of the Potteries' (1985), p. 151 and in Atterbury, 'The Parian Phenomenon', 1989, p. 262.
Locations
Address 186 Liverpool Road Stoke-on-Trent | View on map
1851 (Circa)
Address 4 West Bank Stoke-on-Trent | View on map
1861 (Circa) - 1865
Exhibitions, Meetings, Awards and other Events
Exhibited at The International Exhibition, London, 1862
Class XXXV, Pottery, cat. no. 6869 'Parian statuettes, vases, ornaments, jugs, butter-tubs, dessert pieces &c.'
Institutional and Business Connections
Employed at Copeland (William Taylor Copeland)
1840 (Circa)
Worked as a modeller for Copeland. See 'People of the Potteries' (1985), p. 151.
Descriptions of Practice
Occupation given in Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851
'Sculptor'
Occupation given in Census Returns of England and Wales, 1861
'Sculptor and Parian manufacturer'
Sources
Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851
2005
Class: HO107; Piece: 2006; Folio: 29; Page: 51; GSU roll: 87408
Census Returns of England and Wales, 1861
2005
Class: RG9; Piece: 1939; Folio: 48; Page: 36; GSU roll: 542891
International exhibition 1862, official catalogue, fine art department
1862
Class XXXV, Pottery, cat. no. 6869 (fig. 25, The Parian Phenomenon, Edited by Paul Atterbury, 1989).
People and the Potteries. A Dictionary of Local Biography Volume 1
1985
p. 151.
The Parian Phenomenon: A Survey of Victorian Parian Porcelain Statuary and Busts
1989
pp. 17, 193, 262
UK, Poll Books and Electoral Registers, 1538-1893
2012
No: 1979; Place of abode: West bank, Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent; from 'A List of the Electors and How They Polled at the Contested Election for the Borough of Stoke-on-Trent on Wednesday 12th July, 1865', 1865, p. 50.
Citing this record
'Giovanni Meli', 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=msib4_1233242828, accessed 04 Oct 2023]
