The Lion of Waterloo (1826)
Jean-Louis (Jan Lodewijk) of Geel (Mechelen, 1787 - Brussels, 1852) was a Dutch-Belgian sculptor.
Jean-Louis van Geel received his education at the Academy in Mechelen, where his father, Jan Frans Van Geel, taught (1802-1806). In 1809 he went to Paris to complete his PhD as a student of Philippe-Laurent Roland and Jacques-Louis David at the Academy there. Back in the Netherlands he came to the favor of King Willem I who appointed him in 1816 as a court sculptor. From 1817 to 1821 Van Geel stayed in Rome. From 1830 to 1833 he was a teacher at the Academy in Antwerp. After that Van Geel lost his artistic interest and he died isolated and poor in 1852.
Designer of, among others, figures, busts, monuments, the Lion of Waterloo (1826), allegorical compositions, altars (including the main altar of St. John's Church in Leuven). The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam owns a terracotta sculpture from 1816 representing the constitutional society of the Netherlands and Belgium.
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