AFTER THE ANTIQUE AN ITALIAN MARBLE FIGURE OF SPINARIO LATE 19TH CENTURY the young boy seated on a rocky outcrop endeavouring to extract a thorn from his foot the circular base inset with a bronze pastille inscribed 'Bellman, Ivey & Carter, New Bond Street, By appointment to the Queen' 36.7cm high, CATALOGUE NOTE According to the National Portrait Gallery's Directory of British bronze founders and plaster figure makers, the Bellman firm originally began with Vincent Bellman (c. 1796-1860), who was working as a plasterer and scagliola manufacturer by the 1830s. Upon Bellman's death in 1860 John Ivey (1794-1874) became director of the company and in the 1890s Charles B. Carter (1856-1928?), a dealer in sculpture, became associated with the business. (Times, 13 December 1892, 10) From the late 1880s until the early twentieth century, the firm regularly listed exhibitions of "Bronzes à cire perdue and Russian" and "Sculpture from Academy and Salon" in The Year's Art.