[4] When he first arrived in London he was living at the Haymarket with fellow Italian immigrant Ananso Rossi, father of sculptor Charles Rossi who became a pupil of Locatelli[5][6] Locatelli was occasionally employed in the workshop of Joseph Nollekens where he was supposedly mistaken for the master himself due to his 'superior manners' and his 'dashing mode of dressing in a fashionable coat and red morocco slippers'.
[5] He came to public notice in his own time due to a high profile dispute with George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford and the artistic establishment of the Royal Academy.
It was no coincidence that these names were also members of the Royal Academy, a body which became responsible for commissioning of many of the new public sculptures springing up in the late 18th century.
The instigating incident for his public complaints was the argument with George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford, who refused to pay for a commission in 1788.
This consisted of sculptors John Bacon, Thomas Banks, Agostino Carlini, Nollekens, William Tyler and Joseph Wilton.
On Orford's side the sum was considered exorbitant and Locatelli was subsequently attacked as having cast the piece from plaster rather than carving it from marble.
Locatelli countered this in the press by stating that he had in fact used scagliola, an experimental material of gypsum and glue usually confined to architectural features.
His dispute spilled over into personal attacks on the appointed judges, calling Bacon an "emperor of the arts" and a "monopoly trader".
The final piece was lost in a fire at Houghton Hall in December 1789 which, due to the notoriety of the case, was reported by several newspapers of the day.