John Keats was born in 1795 and brought up in Moorgate in the City of London, the son of an ostler in a livery stable. He went on to become one of the finest poets in the English language, before dying of consumption at the age of 25.

This sculpture stands near the junction of Moorgate and London Wall, a few paces from the site of Keats’s childhood home. It comprises an enlarged bronze copy of a life mask taken during his lifetime, a sandstone plinth and a quotation inscribed in slate. The apparently dreaming head is illuminated by the lines chosen for the inscription and together they point to the receptive state of mind that Keats advanced as critical to his writing of poetry. The lines from his Ode on Indolence read:

My sleep had been embroider'd with dim dreams;

My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o'er

With flowers

To produce the sculpture, a plaster cast of the life mask belonging to Keats House in Hampstead was scanned and digitally enlarged by Pangolin Digital, before being cast in bronze by Pangolin Editions.

Former City of London alderman, Bob Hall, conceived and funded the project and donated the sculpture to the City Corporation. It was jointly unveiled by him and the Lord Mayor of London, Michael Mainelli, on 31st October 2024, the 229th anniversary of Keats’s birth.