John Henning

1771-1851

A Scottish carpenter who turned to sculpturing. After marrying Catherine Sunter when he was 28 and encouraged by his early cameos he went into business in Glasgow and then Edinburgh attracting clients that included Sir Walter Scott. Josiah Wedgwood was impressed by his work and agreed to champion them. His masterpieces were the one-twentieth scale models he created of the Parthenon and Bassae friezes. These took him twelve years to complete. He failed to gain a copyright on this work and others profited by copying them