These were considered extremely refined, showing his subjects at their best and led to him receiving a number of commissions for public monuments and statues, both in Britain and overseas.

[2][3] Before leaving Munich, Ford married a fellow student Anne Gwendoline, the third daughter of Baron Frans von Kreusser, in 1873.

[6] Alfred Gilbert had a neighbouring studio and together they worked on a number of experimental techniques, notably in lost wax casting which Ford would use throughout his career.

[6] Folly was acquired by the Trusties of the Chantrey Fund for the Tate in 1886 and Ford's subsequent variations on the subject, including Peace (1887), The Singer (1889), Applause (1893) and Echo (1895) were also widely praised.

[11][12] Alongside his portrait work, Ford received his first public commission in 1881 for the statue of Rowland Hill now at King Edward Street in London.

[12] A memorial statue by Ford from 1890, depicting General Gordon on a camel, stands at Brompton Barracks, Chatham, the home of the Royal School of Military Engineering.

[12] Ford's 1895 equestrian statue of the army officer Lord Strathnairn, originally erected at Knightsbridge, was cast in gun-metal presented by the Indian government.

[12] He created a silver equestrian statuette, commissioned by the family, of Frederick Roberts, who was killed in action at the Battle of Colenso in the Second Boer War.

[7] The work was not completed until after her death and received poor reviews when exhibited, indoors, at the Royal Academy in May 1901 but was greatly praised when unveiled in a more appropriate external setting in Manchester later the same year.

[12] He subsequently produced a number of small-scale copies, in bronze, of the work which is considered a sensitive and sympathetic study of the elderly Victoria and the last sculptured likeness of her for which she sat.

[18] Around 1900, following an extended period of over-work and stress from financial worries, Ford developed heart disease but continued working at pace and died suddenly at his home in St John's Wood on 23 December 1901.

[6] His salt cellar, in silver, ivory, marble and lapis lazuli, of St George and the Dragon was completed by John Seymour Lucas.

[21] The Fine Art Society held a memorial exhibition for Ford in 1905, from which the Victoria and Albert Museum in London purchased a, unfinished, bronze titled Fate.