British author Israel Zangwill (1864–1926), the son of Eastern-European Jewish immigrants, schooled in Spitalfields, became known as 'the Jewish Dickens' or 'the Dickens of the Ghetto'. His best-known novel 'Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People' (1892) was highly influential and his play 'The Melting Pot' popularised this term to describe the American absorption of multi-national immigrants and was praised by President Roosevelt. Zangwill was the first President of the Ben Uri Society from 1921–24 and presided over the 'Grand Public Welcome' given for Glicenstein when he visited England the same year. Glicenstein’s masterful portrait bronze of Zangwill captures the famous writer as though seated in mid-discourse, his animated right hand adding to an overall feeling of vigour and brio. This work was acquired for the Society in 1925 and lent by Ben Uri to the 1927 Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition of ‘Jewish Art and Antiquities’. In 1935 Ben Uri mounted an Israel Zangwill Memorial Exhibition in which this statuette was also included. Glicenstein was predominantly a carver in wood, favouring oak or walnut, and cutting directly into his material, but also created bronze portrait busts of notables including Gabriele D'Annunzio, Sir Israel Gollancz, Ignace Paderewski, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.