Joseph Nollekens (1737–1823) was one of the leading English sculptors of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, renowned for his portrait busts, ideal figures, and monuments executed in a refined Neoclassical style. His career spans the period in which British sculpture fully absorbed and adapted Continental classical models into a confident national idiom.

Nollekens trained initially in London before spending formative years in Rome, where he studied antique sculpture and the work of contemporary Italian masters. This experience profoundly shaped his approach to form, proportion, and surface, grounding his work in classical precedent while retaining a strong sensitivity to character and likeness.

He achieved particular distinction as a portrait sculptor, producing busts that combine idealisation with acute observation. His handling of marble is characterised by clarity of form, controlled modelling, and a restrained expressiveness that avoids theatrical excess. In both portraiture and monument sculpture, Nollekens favoured composure and balance over dramatic narrative.

A prolific and commercially successful artist, Nollekens received numerous prestigious commissions and played a central role in the institutional life of British art. His work exerted a lasting influence on the next generation of sculptors, including those active in the early nineteenth century, and forms a critical link between eighteenth-century Neoclassicism and the later academic tradition.