Thursday, 20 August 2026

Some Coade Reliefs some notes -

 


Image below Bibliotheque Nationale Paris



Image below Yale Centre for British Art.

Sculpture, Painting, Architecture and Geometry.




..............................



The Four Coade Artificial Stone reliefs.

Navigation, Commerce, Arts and Crafts and Agriculture. 

Bank of Montreal Main Montreal Branch - Montreal, Canada.

On the wall of the passageway linking the Montreal Main Branch and Head Office buildings are four terra cotta bas-reliefs symbolizing Agriculture, Navigation, Arts and Crafts, and Commerce. These panels graced the façade of the Bank’s first building, constructed at the corner of Saint François Xavier and Saint Jacques Streets in 1819 and demolished to make way for a post office in 1876.

Images courtesy Wikpaedia.

Navigation




Commerce.

Indented Coade London 1819.




Arts and Crafts.

Indented Coade London 1819.

This has been adapted from




Agriculture/Ceres

Indented Coade London 1819.




...........................


Cotswold Auction Company 17th October 2023.


The pieces are signed and dated “Coade’s Lithodipyra, London 1787”, 

85cm high x 114cm wide x 10cm deep 

 

Provenance: The reliefs came from the gatehouse of the Apsley Estate, Hurstbourne Priors, Andover . The gatehouse was known as Cocalaurum. The house was built in the late 1700s and is grade II listed.  The reliefs were salvaged and reclaimed by the current owner in the 1970s when the gatehouse was demolished

https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalogue/lot/4c5a0a3e1925c4cb4de855eddfac8cfb/0af8d24542e81eb9357e7ef448a6646f/pictures-antiques-interiors-two-day-sale-cirencester/




































...............................


Yale Centre for British Art.

Inscribed COADE LONDON 1796.

54 × 107.3 × 20.3 cm


image courtesy art uk

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/allegory-of-geometry-337942/search/2026--keyword:coade--referrer:global-search/page/1/view_as/grid






............................

The Hawker Antiques Eliptical Plaques.


https://www.bada.org/object/pair-eighteenth-century-coade-stone-oval-plaques







Monday, 17 August 2026

The Coade Manufactory Trade Card.

 



The 1784 trade card was originally engraved by Paul Wray, after Charles Reuben Ryley.



Hestia wears a band carrying the legend: "Ignea vis" (‘the power of fire’) and above the kiln in the background "nec edax abolere vetustas" (from Book XV of Ovid's "Metamorphoses).

'And now my work is finished, which neither the anger of Jove, nor fire nor sword nor the passing years shall devour’).

With the figures of Time and Hestia in the foreground.

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).


......................


The Trade Card pasted on to the soft cover of the Yale Centre for British Art Copy of the Coade Artificial Stone Catalogue of 1784.

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/alma:9932847843408651






.....................


The Bibliothique Nationale Coade Catalogue engraving used as a frontispiece for the engravings section of the Catalogue.

This catalogue has been amended in ink - almost certainly by someone at the manufactory

John Taskers Book.


https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/viewer/35774/?offset=#page=33&viewer=picture&o=bookmark&n=0&q=




.......................


Engraved Plate from the Guildhall Library Coade Catalogue.

It uses the same plate as the Bibliotheque Nationale Coade Catalogue.



..........................

The Royal Academy Coade Catalogue of 1784 Frontispiece.

This Catalogue belonged to John Yenn R.A.

Yenn was a pupil of William Chambers and will have known John Bacon I.

This copy uses the same plate as the frontispiece for the two Catalogues above.

 the Guildhall Library Coade Catalogue and the Bibliotheque Nationale Coade Catalogue.

I am very grateful to Adam Waterton - Librarian of the Royal Academy for providing this image






...........................


Coade Trade Card.

This appears to have come from the plate used on the two Catalogues noted above

British Museum.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Banks-106-7




.................

The Coade and Sealy Trade Card.

Post 1789? when John Sealy (1749 - 1813) perhaps became a partner in the business.

It is not entirely clear when he became a partner and Alison Kelly is not certain.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Banks-106-9

John Sealy and family members are buried at St Mary's Lambeth Church it is on the left as you walk into the churchyard from the forecourt of Lambeth Palace. The first occupant was his wife Elizabeth, who died in 1806; later, John, his brother, William, and sister-in-law, Harriet, with their children Harriet and Thomas, along with five other family members.



....................

A later Trade Card (post 1799) printed after the Establishment of the Coade Gallery on Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth a short distance from ye manufactory at Narrow Walls.

Mrs Coade took her cousin John Sealey (1749 - 1813) as partner in the business by 21 May 1789 (info Gunnis). He had previously worked at the manufactory for several years.

Sealy died in 1813 and William Croggsan toook over - Eleanor Coade was 80 years old.

Image from the British Museum.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Banks-106-8


 

 ...........................

The Croggan Late Coade and Sealy Trade Card.

Victoria and Albert Museum.

William Croggan had had worked with the Coade Manufactory since abour 1813 after the death of John Sealy when the Company reverted to using the Coade name.

William Croggon bought the famous Coadestone works at the death of Mrs Coade in 1821.


https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O77531/trade-card-bacon-john-the/?carousel-image=2006AN0862







..........................

The Coade Gallery List of 1799.


It includes the trade card engraving amended to Coades Gallery on a full page as the British Museum example of the trade card above.







Unfortunately  the resolution here is not very good





..........................................

The Entrance to Coade and Sealey's Gallery.

Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth, North Side.

European Magazine Vol. 41, 1802.

The engraving - drawn and engraved by Samuel Rawle (1775 - 1860).

Rawle was born not in 1771, as sometimes stated, but in 1775 (and baptised 25 Feb 1776; some plates signed 'Rawle' are by his son George (1802-1881 or later) who worked for his father.


The ground between Pedlar's Acre (Belvedere Road) and the New Inn on Westminster Bridge approach Rd was in 1798 let on building lease to Eleanor Coade, (fn. 155) and houses, known as Coade's Row, were built there, that at the corner of Belvedere Road, No. 102 (later No. 266) being used as a gallery or showrooms for products of Coade's Artificial Stone Factory. 

It bore a tablet inscribed “Coade's Row, 1798,” (fn. 156) until 1908, when it was demolished for the widening of Belvedere Road.



Image here from the British Museum - 

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Heal-106-7-








The Coade Caryatids on Schomberg House Pall Mall, St James, London.









...............................

 Some Notes on the Catalogues.

So far I have discovered 12 Catalogues.

Two catalogues have no engravings and 5 have the engravings but no size / price list.

see - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-coade-dying-gladiator.html

 

I havn't yet compared the contents of all the Catalogues and will do so once I have had sight of all the copies available to me. I suspect more copies will appear as more libraries are catalogued.

 

 1. Yale Centre Catalogue with plates - but it lacks the introduction and size and price list - online.

 2. Bibliotheque Nationale has the best full catalogue with size/price list - available on line. Each Item on the engravings is numbered.

https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/viewer/35774/?offset=#page=100&viewer=picture&o=bookmark&n=0&q=

The items on the engravings are not numbered suggesting this is from the earliest iteration.

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/alma:9932847843408651

 3.  A more or less full catalogue with size and price list - it lacks the frontispiece - in a private collection (with added ink amendments). ex Bonhams. I will obtain full details in due course.

 4.  Guildhall Library, London.  A catalogue with 67 plates /70 pages plates but lacks the size or price list. Each item in the catalogue engravings is numbered.

They have a separate photocopy of Nat. Arts Library Size and Price list.  

 5. National Library of Wales - I am awaiting details of the contents.

 6. The Metropolitan Museum. New York.  It has the engravings but it is not clear how many and whether it contains the introduction and size and price list. - I await further details.

 7.The British Museum/ British Library Catalogue - Has the engravings - Paginated - no size or price list. The Items on the engravings are not numbered.

https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_etchings-of-coades-art_coades-artificial-stone_1779/mode/1up

 8. The Royal Academy Catalogue - this appears to be a fairly complete copy with amendments in ink.



 Three Catalogues / Size Price Lists exist with no engravings attached.

 

9. Soane Museum - awaiting further information - an edition with the plates with a separate size and price list. I am awaiting further information.

10. The National Arts Library. V and A. Has the unamended Catalogue/Price List, but no plates - on line.

11. British Library Catalogue (no 2). Only contains the size and price list - no plates. Available on line.

Monday, 10 August 2026

Coade - The Statues of Time (Chronos) and a Druid.

 





The Yale version of the Coade Catalogue of 1784.

The trade card title plate on the cover is engraved by P. Wray, after Charles Reuben Ryley.

The other engraved plates are not signed.




........................

Time / Chronos from the Yale Catalogue.

The is no size or price list with this catalogue.








............................

The National Arts Library Descriptive Catalogue.

Lacks the Engravings but includes the sizes and prices.

Times is described as height 6 ft and cost - £31 10s.







.................


The Bibliotheque Nationale has the most complete catalogue which can be viewd on line -

https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/viewer/35774/?offset=#page=5&viewer=picture&o=bookmark&n=0&q=

The BN engraving of Time and the Druid - 

the only difference with the Yale version of the Catalogue is that the statues are numbered on the bases of the statues.

Time is no. 20 and the Druid is no. 21. which suggests that this is a reprint given the minor alteration/numbering of the Coade pies corresponding with the list at the front.




..........................

The Guildhall Library City of London Catalogue.

This Catalogue contains only the engravings - no size/price list.

But the Guildhall Libray files have a photocopied size/price list which is from the original copy in the National Arts Library.

Here in the engravings each individual item is numbered corresponding with those numbers in the Size and price list as in the Bibliotheque Nationale copy (above) .

This suggests that it is a later edition - the earlier edition (the Yale Catalogue does not have the  numbers on the individual items).

It is difficult to tell but given the variations it appears that the numbers were added in ink

I am most grateful to Sarah Hume of the Guldhall Library for providing me with several photographs of their catalogue which has enabled me to clarify to some degree the differences in the various catalogues.










..............................


The Druid and Time in the Royal Academy Coade Catalogue.

In this catalogue the individual items have been carefully numbered in ink - as in the Guildhall Library and Bibliotheque national copies





.........................


A figure of Time or Chronos by Coade and dated 1792 was sold Christie's at Wrotham Park, 21st June 1994, lot 199.

There are two variants on this theme by Coade are known to have been produced; the first type, with sickle to his right hand and an hour glass resting in the palm of his left hand. 

The second type as offered in the Wrotham Park sale has an hour glass in his left hand but his right arm is raised to support a sundial. 

The modelling perhaps relates to that of Coade's River God figure, noted in the catalogue of 1784, which can be fairly safely attributed to the sculptor John Bacon (1740 - 1799), with whom Mrs Eleanor Coade (d.1796) had been in business with probably from its inception in 1769 (see A. Kelly, op cit p.62). 

The same Chronos figure in Coade Stone is featured alongside the sarcophagus of Dame Anne Henniker (d.1793) in Rochester Cathedral (image below) and its design appears to have been mistakenly attributed to the sculptor Thomas Banks in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1794, part 1, p.410. (see A. Kelly, op cit p.250).

 

An engraving with Father Time is also featured as the frontispiece to the book of etchings of Coade's Gallery, which also includes this figure (see Kelly, p.66). 

Another sun-dial commissioned by the architect Sir John Soane (d.1837) is discussed by A. Kelly, Sir John Soane and Mrs Eleanor Coade, Apollo, 1989; while 

Another purchased by James Baxter for his Turnham Green house in July 1818 was described as "A statue of Time with scythe and hour-glass complete with rustic plinth. 18 pounds. (A. Kelly, op cit, 1990, p.144).

A six foot figure of Time is listed as item no.20 in A Descriptive Catalogue of Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory of 1784.



The Yale Version - Type 1.






The Sandringham Version.

From Art uk website




















...............................

The Summers Place Auction version.

Lot 4 - 26 September 2023.


Seated on a rock, holding an hour glass, stamped Coade, London 1792.

with bronze sundial engraved I. Coggs, London fecit.

John Coggs is recorded as working in Fleet Street between 1718-1733.


This statue was with Messrs Seago of Pimlico Road London in the 1990's.

Height 4' 11".


https://app.summersplaceauctions.com/en/auction/gs260923-home-garden-natural-history/4-a-rare-coadestone-figure-of-father-time


















































Christie's Wrotham Park  - 21 June 1994.

A RARE COADE STONE SUNDIAL FIGURE OF CHRONOS, the winged, bearded god seated and supporting a platform disc on his head, on a naturalistic rocky base, signed COADE LONDON 1792 (damages and losses) 149cm overall.

Probably the Chronos with Messrs Seago in the 1990's.



Images courtesy Seago Xmas Card.











.....................



Christies Lot 69 -20 June 2013. 















........................



Alison Kelly notes the Statue of 'Time' and Sundial, Tyringham Hall, Buckinghamshire,

Labelled at base Coade Lambeth.






.............................

The Rochester Cathedral Henniker Monument.

One of the grandest monuments in the Cathedral is to Dame Ann Hennicker (d.1792), featuring two allegorical figures of Truth and Father Time produced from artificial Coade stone, developed by notable early British businesswoman Eleanor Coade.

 

Dame Ann Henniker passed away on the 18th July 1792, aged 65. Her husband Lord John Henniker was the son of a Russian Merchant dealing in Leather and Furs and Freeman of Rochester.  He erected a grand marble monument to his late wife in the south nave aisle. 


At the top of the monument, below the Hennicker family arms, records:

 

‘In a vault near this Monument is deposited all that was mortal of DAME ANN HENNIKER, late the Affectionate Wife of SIR JOHN HENNIKER of Newton Hall, and Stratford in the County of Essex Bart. He Represented Sudbury in the first Parliament of His Present Majesty, and in two successive Parliaments in the Town and Port of Dover in this County.’

 

The inscription on the marble sarcophagus below reads:

  

'‘She was the eldest Daughter of Sir JOHN MAJOR BART. of Worlingworth Hall in the County of Suffolk Member for Scarborough, and Coheiress with her surviving Sister ELIZABETH DOWR. DUTCHESS of  HENRY DUKE OF CHANDOS. Two sons JOHN late Member for New Romney, And BRYDGES TREGOTHICK Lieutt Coll of His Majestys 9th Regiment of Dragoons,  and one Daughter ANN ELIZABETH COUNTESS of Aldborough, are left with the Disconsolate & much Afflicted Husband, to mourn Her loss, who, after 45 Years of Conjugal Felicity, in the Practice of every Virtue resigned Her Soul to God, at Bristol Hotwells the 18 of July 1792 Aged 65. Her second Son Major Mercht. of London died the 3d. of Feby. 1789, and lies buried at Stretham: he left 5 Children, vizt. JOHN MINET, MARY ANN, MAJOR JACOB, ELIZABETH FALL, & BRYDGES JACKSON, ALL INFANTS, NOW LIVING.’

 

 















..................................

The Artificial Stone Druid.

To my knowledge there are three almost complete Artificial Stone Druids - all appear to have eminated from the Coade Manufactory. There are other versions in the "Ruin" at Shugborough and the Vyne in Hampshire.

The Croome Court Version, marked Coade 1793.

This appears to be the best preserved version  - it is very close in form to the Priory Park, Chichester version and Erdigg version which are the same as the engraving in the Coade Cartalogue but the headress with oak leaf crown is entirely different.

This version was also restored by Cliveden Conservation including replacement of his right hand.



















..............

The Erdigg Druid.

Inscribed Coade.

Some truly awful photographs are on the National Trust website.

https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1151805









......................

The 1776 Priory Park Druid, Chichester.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/anthonyjc/39482233930/

The statue was originally placed above a water supply in South Street in 1776. 

The Council had decided that a new conduit should be built in South Street at the north end of the fish shambles or market. A pedestal would be built there with a cornice designed by the Mayor and with a pump placed above a tank four feet across and ten feet deep.

James Spershott's record of Chichester events states that 'the new conduit was then built in the South Street and a stone image of one of the ancient druids set upon it and a large reservoir made under ground'.

No reason has been found for the early dismantling of the conduit in South Street about 20 years later.

 Possibly its long medieval pipework failed. The homeless statue was lodged in a passage leading to the Council Chamber where, back in civic control. A decision for its sale,arranged by the Mayor, was made in October 1800. its new owner was William Guy, the surgeon who lived in West Street. When he died in 1825, he and the figure were interred together in the family vault in Chichester Cathedral. The statue remained at the tomb entrance below ground for some 45 years. Around 1870 the statue was removed from the entrance of the vault. Its fate during the next three years is unclear, but the right arm needed repair. In 1873 the West Sussex Gazette noted that the druid had at last found a proper resting-place: it was presented to the Priory Park Society by Dr W A Guy of King's College, London, grandson of the surgeon.



In 2019, Chichester District Council commissioned Cliveden Conservation to restore and repair their druid. The conservators were responsible for repairing the two other druids at National Trust properties.

 

The druid’s right arm was separated at the shoulder and broken in several places. The right hand, which grasps an oak stave, was in poor condition. There was also some surface damage, and past repairs and previous painting had been carried out with unsuitable materials.


Image below from 

https://chichesterlocalhistory.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/No.26-2010.pdf















...........................


The Shugborough Druid.

.


........................


Notes on the Catalogues.

So far I have discovered 11 Catalogues.

see - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-coade-dying-gladiator.html

 

I havn't yet compared the contents of all the Catalogues and will do so once I have had sight of all the copies available to me. I suspect more copies will appear as more libraries are catalogued.

 

 1. Bibliotheque Nationale has the best full catalogue available on line. Each Item on the engravings is numbered.

https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/viewer/35774/?offset=#page=100&viewer=picture&o=bookmark&n=0&q=

 2. Yale Centre Catalogue with plates - but it lacks the introduction and size and price list - online.

The items on the engravings are not numbered

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/alma:9932847843408651

 3.  A full catalogue in a private collection (with ink amendments). ex Bonhams. I will obtain full details in due course.

 4.  Guildhall Library, London.  A catalogue with 67 plates /70 pages plates but lacks the size or price list. I am awaiting full details of the contents. They have a photocopy of Nat. Arts Library Size and Price list.  Each item is numbered.

 5. National Library of Wales - I am awaiting details of the contents.

 6. The Metropolitan Museum. New York.  It has the engravings but it is not clear how many and whether it contains the introduction and size and price list. - I await further details.

 7.The British Museum/ British Library Catalogue - Has the engravings - Paginated - no size or price list. The Items on the engravings are not numbered.

https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_etchings-of-coades-art_coades-artificial-stone_1779/mode/1up

 8. The Royal Academy Catalogue - this appears to be a fairly complete copy with amendments in ink.

I am awaiting further details.


 Three Catalogues exist with no engravings attached.

 

9. Soane Museum - awaiting further information - an edition with the plates with a separate size and price list. I am awaiting further information.

10. The National Arts Library. V and A. Has the unamended Catalogue/Price List, but no plates - on line.

11. British Library Catalogue (no 2). Only contains the size and price list - no plates. Available on line.