Sculpture

This iron bull's head was one of many made by the popular Victorian sculptor John Bell to decorate the central gate posts of the cattle livestock pen at Metropolitan Cattle Market, which opened in 1855. Bell also designed sheep and pig heads to decorate the central gates posts to their respective animal pens. The heads began to disappear from the Second World War onwards, before part of the market was demolished in 1963.Today this is one of only three or four known surviving examples of the market's decorative heads.

Metropolitan Cattle Market was Victorian London’s finest cattle market, incorporating state of the art design and technology. Designed by James Bunstone Bunning, architect of the first Billingsgate Market, it was intended as a statement of imperial greatness, progress and superiority. Known for adding ornamentation to his designs, Bunning enlisted Bell who had just displayed ‘The Eagle Slayer’ at the Great Exhibition to design these animal heads. Bunning's design was mocked by some as being of the architectural style ‘bovine order’.

A native of Norfolk, Bell moved to London in 1827 and enjoyed a long and successful career in which he won commissions from the royal family, the government and the military. He is perhaps best known for his sculpture representing the American continent on the base of the Albert Memorial at Kensington. Bell also sculpted for the Minton ceramics firm based in Stoke-on-Trent.