COADE, LAMBETH, CIRCA 1785-1800

Eleanor Coade's 'Artificial Stone Manufactory' was established at King's Arms Stairs, Lambeth in 1769. Eleanor Coade was one of a handful of independent women in the eighteenth century who began their own businesses and managed them successfully. The business produced sculpture and decorative architectural ornament in a material - today referred to as 'Coade' stone - which could be cast in complex forms and which was highly resistant to damage from the elements. Heraldic animals were popular ornaments for the gate-piers of aristocratic homes and for this purpose the Coade factory produced the present Grecian Sphinxes of female form with a female head adorned with a small tiara, with a voluptuous bosom and a leonine body covered with a embroidered saddlecloth. Nine other pairs have been located of this model (I. Roscoe ed., A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660-1851, 2009, p. 287), including at Trent Park, Hertfordshire (1785), Callender House, Falkirk (circa 1787-8), Croome Court, Worcestershire (1795) which were probably purchased by James Wyatt for the gardens, Tullynally House, Ireland (by 1799) and Gosford House, Lothian (circa 1800).