This post created for Caroline Stanford.
This post is another work in progress and will be added to as and when more information appears.
No. 17 in the Coade Catalogue of 1784 Pomona amended in ink to Dying Gladiator. 30gns.
Although no size is given the price suggests it is a substantial overlife size? figure.
There are two artificial stone Dying Gladiators/Gauls surviving - one at Wentworth Woodhouse (by George Davy?) and another at Castle Howard.
I have not yet seen images of these pieces.
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So far I have discovered 12 Catalogues.
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.
2. Yale Centre Catalogue with plates - but it lacks the introduction and size and price list. online
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.
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 details
7.The British Museum/ British Library Catalogue - Paginated - no size or price list
8. The Royal Academy Catalogue - this appears to be a fairly complete copy with amendments in ink.
9. The University of Leeds Library Catalogue. John Evans Bedford Library. Includes size and price list and 64 plates
Three Catalogues exist with no engravings attached.
10. Soane Museum - awaiting further information - an edition with the plates with a separate size and price list. I am awaiting further information.
11. The National Arts Library. V and A. Has the unamended Catalogue/Price List but no plates - available on line.
12. British Library Catalogue. Only contains the size and price list - no plates. Available on line.
For more in depth information see below.
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The Bibliotheque Nationale Coade Catalogue of 1794.
This page below is from the Bibliotheque Nationale copy of the Coade Catalogue of 1784.
Object Number: 37.81.2
1 volume 31 p. - 67 pages of
copperplate engravings; size -24 x 30 cm (oblong)
It has several amendments written in ink.
Each individual item onthe plates is numbered and these numbers appear to have been engraved on the plates later (this needs to be confirmed).
The entry here on the size and price list has been amended in ink from no. 17 Pomona to the Dying Gladiator.
The price (one shilling) has also been deleted in ink.
The Catalogue is printed in "landscape" format with one engraved plate printed on each page.
Most of the items on the engravings are numbered and correspond with the catalogue numbers on the Price and Size list at the beginning after the 2 page Advertisement as here.
5 of the Plates are dated Dec 1777,
9 of the Plates are dated Jan - Feb 1778.
This appears to be an almost complete version - although there are some plates are missing
https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/viewer/35774/?offset=#page=5&viewer=picture&o=bookmark&n=0&q=
Here the plate for the Coade business card is used as a frontispiece for the BN catalogue.
This design was used throughout the life of the Coade Business.
A variation of this design was used for the large sculptural relief above the main entrance to the Coade Gallery, see - The engraving The Entrance to the Coade Gallery on Westminster Bridge Road opened in 1799 from the European Magazine of 1802 (below). The relief was later removed to the Gallery onthe New Road (Euston Rd)
Inscribed on the Title Page - John Tasker' Book, Baker St, Portman Sq.
Tasker died April 1816. He lived in the latter part of his life at 8 Baker St.
John Tasker a few notes -
John Tasker was living at Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square
at the time of his marriage in 1789.
He was born in London in 1738. He later worked on Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, where he housed his own practice.
He worked on Capeaton Hall - https://georgiangroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GGJ_2014_11_Pears.pdf
Picture Gallery at Oxburgh Hall.
Tasker was much employed by Thomas Weld of Lulworth Castle,
Dorset. There Tasker was responsible for redecorating the interior (1780-2) and
building a domed Roman Catholic chapel. In 1811, Tasker created the Greek
revival facade of Spetchley Park, Worcestershire, as well as repairing 17
Portman Square.
John Tasker, who designed and built several houses in St.
Marylebone and was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol37/pp58-76
"While the terraces which were being erected on the southern
part of the (Phillimore ) estate were still uncompleted, a different kind of
building enterprise was begun in the north. In 1808 John Tasker of St.
Marylebone, an architect and buider, and Thomas Winter of St. Jame's, a tailor,
entered into an agreement with William Phillimore to build on nineteen and a
half acres of farmland between the northern boundary of the estate and a
footpath which led from the town of Kensington to Holland House (now Duchess of
Bedford's Walk)".
...............................
The Yale Centre for British Art version of the 1784 Coade Catalogue has the engravings
It does not includes the Sizes and Price List.
36 pages.
Here the Catalogue is printed in "portrait" format with 2 engraved plates on each page.
3 plates are dated December 1777.
8 of the plates are engraved with date published as January 1788.
This Yale copy is disbound and mounted (on stubs) to accommodate the oblong format. It has corrections and additions in pen and brown ink.
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/alma:9932847843408651
It has bound with it: Coade's Lithodipyra, or, Artificial Stone Manufactory [London, 1784?] (ESTC T33523, Harris 136). This presumably refers to the trade card pasted to the cover. (below).
Literature -
Harris, E. British architectural books and writers, 137
Kelly, A. Mrs. Coade's stone, p. 41-46
The Yale Soft Cover with Trade Card.
The Yale copy of the Catalogue - Ceres and Pomona
Cat. Nos.14 and 15 in the size and price lists.
This catalogue has not got the pen and ink written amendments.
................................
Their refs. - A 3.5 NO 1 5485898554
I am very grateful to Sarah Hume - Rare Books Librarian at the Guildhall Library for providing the information below.
This is a set including plates from 1778, similar to the one at Yale but bound in landscape format instead and ordered a little differently. It’s 67 plates/70 pages total.
There are some manuscript additions, mostly numbers which do seem to correspond with the 1784 descriptive catalogue, and occasionally prices, which also seem to correspond with the 1784 catalogue.
Their ref.SL 68:5 548589866X
This is a photocopy and I have now confirmed that it is a copy of the version in the National Arts Library.
Size 235×285 mm.
The title-plate verso of the set of plates with which this Descriptive Catalogue is bound carries the bookplate of John Yenn, and its title plate is inscribed in pencil, 'John Yenn RA'.
Yenn was born on 8 March 1750. He was one of the first students to be admitted to the Royal Academy Schools at the Royal
Academy from September 1769. He was awarded a gold medal in 1771He was elected an associate of the academy in 1774
and a full academician in 1791. He served as treasurer of the academy from 1796
to 1820.
In 1774 Chambers described him as ‘an ingenious faithful intelligent servant’ who ‘for two or three years past has managed a great part of my extensive business very much to my satisfaction’.
After the start of work at Somerset House, Chambers depended on Yenn increasingly, both in London and in the different projects commissioned by the King elsewhere.
Yenn will almost certainly have had close contact at this time with John Bacon who provided much sculpture for Somerset House
In 1782 Yenn was
appointed by the Office of Works to the position of Clerk of the Works at
Buckingham House and Kensington Palace. He was elected Royal Academician in
1791 and on Chambers’s death in 1796 he became Treasurer to the Royal Academy,
actively (occasionally acrimoniously) involving himself in the politics of that
institution.
In the late 1770s he succeeded Chambers as the Duke of Marlborough's architect at Blenheim Palace, where his works included, in 1789, the design of the small Corinthian "Temple of Health", built to celebrate the recovery of George III from illness. Nearby, in 1783, he built a new aisle at Woodstock church.
Chambers provided him with a number of other important positions: in
1780 he became the Clerk of the Works at Richmond Park, and he later held the
same position at Kensington Palace, Buckingham House and at the Royal Mews (where he had a residence).
In the 1790’s Yenn was also involved in the refurbishment of
the State Apartments at Windsor and in the King’s projects at Buckingham House,
including the redecoration of the Saloon following the removal of the Raphael
Cartoons in 1787 and the provision of a new cold bath house for the King,
erected in the garden to the south of the library wing. In addition,
c.1800-1810 he worked on the Duke of Kent’s apartments at Kensington Palace.
The Trafalgar Quarters Greenwich - Erected in 1813-6 as purpose-built offices and storerooms for the Royal Hospital for Seamen outside to the east side of the main buildings and outside its grounds. The brick building was designed by the Hospital Surveyor John Yenn and has two storeys with a low roof. The main elevation is adorned by a Coade stone frieze depicting the Hospital's arms. The rear of the building encloses a courtyard. There are a series of gates, gate piers and railings to the forecourt west of the main building
The Royal Academy Copy Notes -
The text is annotated in ink, mostly indicating alterations to the descriptions of the items or their prices.
The last note reads, "Since
the publication of this Catalogue above 200 articles have been added to the
Manufactory and are continually increasing from New Designs".
"[Etchings of Coade's Artificial Stone Manufacture, Narrow Wall, Lambeth, published for private circulation under the superintendance of John Bacon?] Published 1777-79".
A Descriptive Catalogue of Coade’s Artificial Stone Manufactory (London, 1784) British Library, REf ESTC T31712.
MS. in pencil; title from fly-leaf.- A set of proofs?, some dated 1777 or 1778. - "Published for private circulation, probably under the direction of Eleanor Coade's business partner, John Bacon the Sculptor"
Unfortunately the rest of the note on the available scan is virtually illegible (see below) - the writer was probably not aware of other copies the the 1784 Catalogue
Alison Kelly ... page 41 states that it must be post 1784, (as opposed to 1777/8) but I believe from an early edition - the individual items on the engraved plates are not numbered.
Object Number: 37.81.2
Dimensions: 9 1/16 x 11 11/16 x 1 1/8 in. (23 x 29.7 x 2.8
cm).
P. 1 has the phrase "in 1769" written in ink after
"The period of fifteen years..." and at the end of the first
paragraph, there is a hand-written comment, "this Gateway is now to be
pulled down and finished in this Artificial Stone."
At the bottom of p. ii, there is a hand-written comment
(same hand-writing as before), "Several of the Articles in this Catalogue,
having undergone considerable alterations and been new modelled [sic] the
prices of course have been varied."
At the bottom of p. 31, there is another hand-written
comment, "Since the publication of this catalogue above 200 articles have
been added to the Manufactory."
Throughout pp. 3-31, there are hand-written notes and slight
changes to numbers and sizes.
From the Records of Talbot family, of Margam Abbey near Port Talbot and Penrice Castle, Gower.
Their refs Preferred citation: 9113.
virtua system control number vtls005752877 - Project identifier ISYSARCHB70
Thomas Mansell Talbot
In south Wales Neo-classicism was introduced by the Gloucestershire architect Anthony Keck and by William Jernegan, an architect who established a practice at Swansea. Keck who worked from Kings Stanley, Gloucestershire may have worked with Sir Robert Taylor who would have introduced him to clients in Wales.
He built a bow fronted house for Thomas
Mansel Talbot (1747–1813) adjacent to Penrice Castle in Glamorgan in
1773–1780. This building, though earlier than Samuel Wyatt's work in north
Wales, lacks features such as the overarched windows. However, the Orangery he
also built for Thomas Mansel Talbot at Margam Abbey from 1787 to 1790, exhibits
a much more refined appreciation of Neo-classicism and may well be considered
the best example of this architectural style in Wales.
The Temple of the Four Seasons at Margam relocated in the early 19th century has four figures which appear to be Coade added after 1845. There are Coade urns on the Orangery
A descriptive catalogue of Coade's Artificial Stone
Manufactory, at King's Arms Stairs, Narrow-Wall, Lambeth: opposite White-hall
Stairs. With prices affixed. Consisting of, I. Statues. II. Busts. III. Vases.
VI. [sic] Pedestals. V. Capitals. VI. Frizes. VII. Fascias. VIII. Pannels and
tablets. IX. Medallions. X. Pateras for elevations from 20 to 40 feet. XI.
Ditto from 20 to 30 feet. XII. Pateras for elevations from 10 to 20 feet. XIII.
Ditto of 10 feet and under. XIV. Coats of arms XV. Imposts. XVI. Key-stones.
XVII. Architraves. XVIII. Rustics. XIX. Pinnacles. XX. Balusters. XXI. Balls
and feet. XXII. Chimney tops. XXIII. Piers. XXIV. Consoles. XXV. Sepulchral
ornaments XXVI. Chimney-pieces. XXVII. Pieces of furniture and various
ornaments. XXVIII. Ornaments to fix on stone or wood. XXIX. Wood chimney-pieces
with stone ornaments. With an appendix (oversize).
Leeds University Library copy at Bedford Collection K093: From the John Evan Bedford Library, gifted in 2019. Twenty-first-century pictorial bookplate on front pastedown: John Evan Bedford. Former reference: TC/O/1. Twentieth-century armorial bookplate on front pastedown: East Sussex County Library.
This copy has the same or very similar pen and ink amendments/additions to the catalogue which are the same as those in the Royal Academy Catalogue.
MS. annotations in a contemporary hand on pages i, ii, 31: "but this gateway [leading to Sion-House] is now ordered to be taken down & the whole executed in this artificial stone" (Advertisement page i);
NB "The pedestals vases statues etc of this manufactory are frequently made servicable for warming stair cases churches public halls etc" ...
(page ii); "since the
publication of this catalogue above 200 articles have been added to the
manufactory" (page 31). MS. annotations to prices and measurements in same hand
on various pages.
https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/746389
1768 -1773.Tablets
and medallions, some with reliefs of dancing nymphs - untraced.
1771. The dying
gladiator (Wentworth Woodhouse - info Caroline Stanford).
1768-1773. Grecian Venus Statue, untraced.
1768-1773. Several busts from the antique, including Antoninus
Pius untraced.
1768-1773. Druid Statue. untraced. This is presumably the Druid as illustrated in the Coade Catalogue of 1784.
1768 -1773. Charity children. untraced
1773. Alexander and
Hercules, four medallions - Architectural
Sculpture. untraced.
1773 ‘4 pieces of Cornis’, patterae with lions heads,
medallions with the head of the Duke of Northumberland. untraced.
George Davy, an artificial stone manufacturer, took over the premises in Goulston Square, Whitechapel, London, formerly occupied by Daniel Pincot, some time between February and October 1767, when he advertised -
‘a large Quantity of Goods of near 100 different Subjects, such as Figures, Busts, Tablets, Friezes, Medalions, Vases, Capitals of Different Orders of various Sizes’ for sale at his warehouse at 18 Long Acre, near Covent Garden.
He claimed that these goods were ‘more durable and higher finished than natural stone’ and, furthermore, undertook to sell them at the same price or cheaper than any equivalent work available in plaster or wood (Daily Ad, 23 October 1767).
At the end of December 1767 there was a sale of artificial stone
produced at Goulston Square over the last year, by Christie’s, perhaps
including work by both Davy and Pincot. The catalogue survives in the Christies archive and shows that prices achieved were considerably lower than those of comparable
items listed in the catalogue of the Coade Factory of Lambeth, published in
1783.
In March 1768 Davy announced that a large quantity of his artificial stone had been sold by John Moreing at the Great Sale Room in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, adding ‘if due Encouragement is given to this Undertaking, the Proprietor intends to continue the Manufactory’ (Daily Ad, 23/24 March 1768).
Further sales of Davy's products were offered at Moreing’s auction house and then at Blyth’s sale room in Dean Street, Soho were advertised throughout 1768 and in 1770.
The public
response appears to have been less than enthusiastic for Davy commented, ‘the
Proprietor has reason to think that many Gentlemen entertain a less opinion of
Artificial Stone by the Reports of some whose Interest it may be to deprecate
it’ (Daily Ad, 27 May 1768).
Davy’s last known advertisements appeared in April 1771 (Daily Ad, 29 April 1771) and by July 1773 he was financially ruined.
He wrote
to his patron, the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham requesting payment for four
medallions of Alexander and Hercules (6), explaining that they ‘were made by
your particular Order and at the Sale I bought them for your Lordship but am
now so poor that I cannot clare [sic] the lots therefore let me intreat your
Lordship to be so kind as to advance me the money or else the goods will be
resold and all the charges attending it will fall on me’. He also informed him
that if he had any further orders he should approach a ‘Mr Smith at
Nightsbridge’ who had bought all his moulds (Rockingham Vouchers, Sheffield
City Library, No 1, microfilm A314). In October 1773 Davy wrote a yet more
desperate letter to the Duke of Northumberland asking him to settle a bill for
£14 8s for various pieces of artificial stone (5),‘for I must Actually go to
Prison in a City Action if I can’t raise fifteen pounds by the 15th or 16th of
this month’ (Davy/Northumberland).
Rockingham bought reliefs, busts and statues after the antique from Davy, as well as a statue of a druid (2) and charity children (7), both subjects later produced by the Coade Factory. Some of Davy’s moulds may still have been in use at Lambeth more than 50 years later, for it seems likely that ‘Mr Smith at Nightsbridge’ was a predecessor or partner of Bridges of Knightsbridge whose factory was bought by Mrs Coade in 1775.
This suggestion of a direct connection between Davy, Bridges and Coade is supported by the production of large-scale statues of druids by all three businesses (see Bridges, of Knightsbridge, 1 and Coade Factory, of Lambeth, 207).
Literary References: Valpy 1986, 210-5, 220-1; Coade 1990,
33; Penny 1990, 879
Archival References: Rockingham Vouchers;
Davy/Northumberland
Auction References: Pincot and Davy 1767; Davy 1768 (1);
Davy 1768 (2); Davy 1768 (3); Davy 1768 (4); Davy 1770
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George Davy at Wentworth Woodehouse.
It was probably excavated around in about 1620 and was first recorded in a 1623 inventory of the collections of the Ludovisi familyrecorded under the description "dying gladiator" (gladiatore che
muore).The 16th-century Ludovisi inventories do not mention the so-called Ludovisi barbarians, thus it is likely that the Ludovisi acquired them early in the 17th century, during excavations for the building of the Villa Ludovisi commissioned by Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi on the site of the Roman Gardens of Sallust (Latin: Horti Sallustiani)" .
"In 1670, Giambattista Ludovisi considered selling the Dying
Gladiator (Gladiatore morente), as it was known then, valuing it at 70,000
scudi, almost twice as much as the value of any other single figure in his
collection. The sculpture was displayed in the Palazzo Grande of the Villa
Ludovisi until it was seized in about 1688–1689 by Livio Odescalchi, the Duke
of Bracciano, as payment of a debt, returned, and again seized by Odescalchi in
1695. It was finally returned to the last surviving Ludovisi, Ippolita
Boncompagni, in 1715 or 1716".
"In the early 1730s Pope Clement XII (ruled 1730–1740) gave
large sums of money to the Marquis Capponi to acquire ancient Roman sculpture
and other antiquities, thereby establishing the Capitoline Museum. Capponi, its
first director, soon began adding more objects to its collections. Upon the
death of Ippolita Ludovisi in December 1733, he began negotiations with the
legal representative of her heirs, Cardinal Troiano Acquaviva, for the
acquisition of the Dying Gladiator. The sculptor Agostino Cornacchini set the
starting price at 12,000 scudi, but this amount was subsequently reduced to
6,000 scudi"
What is known of the conservation history of the sculpture can be briefly summarized as follows: Acquired by Clement xn in 1737 for the Capitoline Museums, it was ceded to the French in 1797 under article 13 of the Treaty of Tolentino. It remained in Paris in the Musee Centrale des Arts until 1815 when it was repatriated thanks to the intervention of Antonio Canova (1757-182.2). The work as it appears today is the result of a careful restoration including extensive reconstruction work attributed to Ippolito Buzzi (1562-1634), a sculptor from Lombardy who worked on the restoration of the Ludovisi collection from 1621 to 1625.
I have adapted some of the following essay for this brief history of the Dying Gaul.
Reconstructive Restorations of Roman Sculptures - Three Case Studies by Giovanna Martellotti.
Page 179 - from - History of the restoration of Ancient Stone sculptures by Janet Burnett Grossman.
Papers Delivered at a Symposium Organized by the Departments of Antiquities and Antiquities Conservation of the J. Paul Getty Museum and Held at the Museum 25-27 October 2001.
Image below from this essay which gives an idea of the substantial amount of restorations.
https://www.academia.edu/70617895/History_of_the_restoration_of_ancient_stone_sculptures
Wikipaedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul
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Scheemakers made a copy of the Gladiator in Portland Stone in 1743 for the garden Rousham
......................
Simon Vierpyl.
It is yet not clear to me whether this refers to our gladiator or the standing statue.
Vierpyl, by working very hard, had reduc’d his block, into something of a human shape’ and on 20 September Howard heard from another source that the marble of the statues was flawless and ‘ye workmanship wont be disagreeable’. They were not completed until October 1753. When Russel wrote confirming their dispatch on 25 December he added ‘your statues have been extremely admired and prais'd by Gentlemen and Connoisseurs, from whence no small advantage has accru’d to Mr Vierpyle [who has] since had commissions to do the fighting & the dying Gladiator, the former for Lord Charlemont, and the latter for Lord Pembroke (Wilton House), as likewise several busts for Lord Bolingbroke & other Gentlemen’.
Henceforth Vierpyl’s activities were
largely confined to making copies from antiquities in the Capitoline Museum and
the French Academy in Rome, where he gained access thanks to the powerful
influence of Cardinal Albani.
The sculpture appears in François Perrier's 1638 folio of engravings of Rome's
"finest sculptures", marking the first of innumerable times it has
been reproduced.
Image here from - https://pictura-prints.com/product/rome-murmillo-gladiator-statue-91-francois-perrier-1638/
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The Dying Gladiator.
Etching by J. Wagner after R. Dalton, 1744.
Source of the image Wellcome Collection.
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/vdhwqpbr/images?id=n94gwft8
..........................
The Dying Gladiator.
Engraving.
Pierre Duflos (1742 - 1816).
.............................
Mezzotint engraved by Richard Houston
After: Giovanni Paolo Pannini. Published by: John Bowles.
1750/60's.
...........................
As well as the many plaster casts it was also cast in bronze
by Luigi Valadier for the Duke of Northumberland at Syon House in 1773.
............................
The Matthew Brettingham Cast of the Dying Gladiator at Goodwood House.
Goodwood Archives, Box 36/20. Brettingham's receipt, dated
13 Nov. 1756, is for the following casts: Petus and Arria , £30; Dying
Gladiator , £20; Meleager , £20; Apollo Belvedere , £20; Flora , £20; St
Susanna , £18; Callipygian Venus , £12; Apollino , £8; Camillus from Wilton
survive, but only for smaller objects.
The centrepiece of the Garden Hall is a sculpture of the
Dying Gladiator acquired by the 5th Earl of Carlisle in Rome in 1768. (this info needs confirmation).
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