A Very Fine Portrait Bust
No marks but very obviously Coade.
The photographs here about 20 years old.
This bust was briefly on the market.
It went to a London collector.
Where is it now??
Monday, 2 February 2026
The Coade premises at Narrow Wall, Lambeth
...............
In 1722, Richard Holt took out a patent with the carpenter-turned-architect Thomas Ripley for:
‘A certain Compound Liquid Metal never before known and used by the Ancients or Moderns, by which Artificial Stone and Marble is made by casting or running the metall into Moulds of any Form or Figure ... which being petrified or vetrified [sic] and finished by Strong Fire, becomes more durable and harder than Stone and Marble ...’
In 1730 Holt published - A Short Treatise of Artificial Stone, as 'tis now made, and converted into all manner of curious embellishments, and proper ornaments, of architecture: with a grovelling dedication to Lord Burlington.
He gave his address as The Artificial Stone Warehouse over against York Buildings Stairs and near Cupers Bridge in Lambeth, Surrey 1730.
Holt’s Short Treatise informs us that: ‘a good round Catalogue of these [applications] has already been published for me…and runs as follows, viz. Columns, Pedestals, Entablatures, Cornices,Pediments, Ballustrades, Statues, Rusticks, Fascias, Coppings of Walls and Chimneys, Chimney-pieces, Hearth-Stones, Architraves, Frontispieces of Doors, Windows, Alcoves and Grotto’s, Cascades, Obelisques, Arches, Piazza’s, Key-Stones, Steps, Pavements, Urns, balls…Tomb-stones, Monuments, Sun-Dials, Crests for Doors, gates and Gateways, Statuary of all Sorts,
Pipes of all Bores and Sizes…the prices are fix’d as near as I can, to about one Third part of the Price of Stone, and one Half of the Price of Lead.
There's alſo a Show of Goods on the Gable-End, towards the River, that will direct to the Houſe; where, at any time, when the Water is
above or about Half Flood, Gentlemen may Land at the very Door, and have
nothing to do, but to Step, ot set their Foot, out the Boat, into the House.
The treatise is available on line at -
https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-short-treatise-of-arti_holt-richard_1730
The Holt business had disappeared after August 1732, and the final sale notice has an air of desperation: Holt’s goods were ‘To be sold at a very cheap Rate, for ready Money
............................
Batty Langley and Artificial Stone.
Batty Langley's Early Years in London 1729 -35, Langley Hans Sloane and Artificial Stone - Christine Macaleavy. Garden History, Vol. 44, No. 2 (WINTER 2016), pp. 191-208
(18 pages)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44987901
.....................
Anonymous drawing of the entrance to the Coade Manufactory
1780's?
British Museum.
.......................................
Images from the London Picture Archive - used with permission.
Note the man posing with his arm leaning on a font (as inthe Church at Debden).
There appears to be three versions of this drawing by different artists.
Charles Tomkins, JT Smith, and George Sheppard c 1810 - 30.
...................................
Drawing Signed bottom right by JT Smith.
British Museum.
.......................................
Charles Tompkins 1801.
British Museum.
This drawing appears to show the legs of the statue of Polyphemus which was laterset upinthe Westminster Bridge showroon before being sold to the Fonthill Estate
................................
Here illustrated is the Urn with the Floral arrangement which is used on the roof of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
.............................
The Debden Church Essex Coade Stone Font.
The Image below from -
.........................
The St Georges Chapel Windsor Coade Stone Font.
https://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/788/
................................
Brief History of the Ownership and Management of Messrs Coade
In 1769 Eleanor Coade Snr bought the Artificial Stone Manufactury of Daniel Pincot at Narrow Walls in Lambeth. In
1771 she dismissed him and appointed the neo-classical sculptor John Bacon as the
supervisor.
At first, Coade pieces were stamped ‘COADE’, or, for a period in the 1780s to 1790s, ‘COADE'S LITHODIPYRA’.
In 1799 she took on as partner her cousin John Sealy, and the firm became Coade & Sealy until his death in 1813.
She then appointed William Croggon, a remote relation, to be her manager. His work books from 1813–21 survive. [PRO, C.111/106] The firm's stamp, which had been ‘COADE & SEALY’, reverted to being ‘COADE’.
On
Eleanor's death in 1821, William Croggon bought the business and traded
successfully, doing much work for Buckingham Palace, until 1833. He then went
bankrupt, probably through £20,000-worth of work left unpaid by the Duke of
York, and died in 1835. His son Thomas John refounded the firm which survived
until the early 1980s. Very little more Coade stone was made, however, and no
pieces dated later than 1840 have been found, though the moulds were not sold
until 1843.
.......................
The first Coade Trade Card.
Probably printed before the death of Strahan.
Printmaker: Wray, P. Draughtsman: Ryley, Charles Reuben (Possibly after)
Trade card of Coade, with the goddess Hestia, keeper of hearth and home, with a lit torch in one hand fending off Chronos, the Greek personification of Time, who is attempting to seize a sculpted figure personifying Sculpture and Architecture (as signified by the pair of compasses in one hand and a set square in the other).
In the background a sculpture of the Three Graces on a Corinthian
composite capital in a kiln
Etching and stipple.
Image from the British Museum.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG195726
William Strahan (24 March 1715 – 9 July 1785) was a Scottish printer and publisher, and a politician who sat in the House of Commons between from 1774 to 1784. He was succeeded by his son Andrew.
He was a correspondent and later a good friend of Benjamin Franklin.
By 1770 he owned the biggest printing operation in England, comprising three separate printing businesses in six buildings.
..........................
The Coade Catalogue of 1784.
London, Printed:: To be had at the Manufactory, and of J. Strahan, Bookseller, No. 67, Strand. -, M,DCC, LXXXIV. [Price One Shilling].
The title plate is signed as engraved by R. Wray. Other
plates are not signed.
Some of the engravings are dated 1773 onward.
The catalogue contains 778 entries: vases, fireplaces,
capitals, friezes, medallions...;
A complete version is available on the excellent website of the Bibliotheque Nationale, France.
The Yale Centre for Bitish Art have slightly mutilated copy available in high resolution -
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/alma:9932847843408651
Another copy although in less resolution is available on line from the British Museum Collection
The Soane Museum has a copy - not available on line
https://collections.soane.org/b9139
The Royal Academy has a copy formerly propert of John Yenn. not available on line
Here is a small selection of the engravings.
.........................
A Later Trade Card (post 1800) printed after the Establishment of the Coade Gallery in Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth.
Strahan - 67 Strand
William Strahan (24 March 1715 – 9 July 1785) was a Scottish
printer and publisher, and a politician who sat in the House of Commons between
from 1774 to 1784. He was a correspondent and later a good friend of Benjamin
Franklin. He sat for Joshua Reynolds
The business was tsken over after his death by his son Andrew (1749 - 1831).
The William Croggan (Late Coade and Sealey) Trade Card (post 1820).
Printed after the purchase of the business by Croggan in 1820
.............................
The Entrance to the Coade Gallery of Sculpture at Pedlars Acre on Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth
From the European Magazine Vol. 41. 1802.
Herw we see the caryatids as used on the porch at Schomberg House, Pall Mall.
..........................
The End.
Auction 21 July 1843.
As far as I am aware no Austen and Seeley statue of a River God has reappeared.
But it is interesting to note that the moulds went to Austen and Seeley rather than Blashfield or Blanchard.
..........................
A Map of Lambeth of the Mid 18th Century.
..............................................
of Further Interest -