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Lot Essay
This bas-relief Roman tablet designed by George III's court sculptor John Bacon RA (d.1799) celebrates the Cardinal Art of Architecture as personified by a female figure wearing a temple-pedimented diadem, who is recumbent against a foliated basket, recalling the Corinthian capitals origins, while presenting an architectural plan to a youthful genius bearing a masons set-square and mallet. Bacon's design for Architecture or 'Architectura', together with another three personifying the Arts of Painting, Sculpture and Geometry, are illustrated in the book of Coade's etchings which correspond to those listed in the 1784 ..Descriptive Catalogue of Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory, Section VIII Pannels and Tablets, p.9, No.227 An Emblematical Figure of Architecture £5/5/0d.
One of Coade's Architecture tablets featured on the Marylebone house of the architect James Wyatt (d.1813), another at Sledmere, Yorkshire and further at Belmont, Kent, the later with the Kent house behind the figure, showing how adaptable the designs were. (A.Kelly, Mrs Coade's Stone, London 1980, pp.170-171.)
One of Coade's Architecture tablets featured on the Marylebone house of the architect James Wyatt (d.1813), another at Sledmere, Yorkshire and further at Belmont, Kent, the later with the Kent house behind the figure, showing how adaptable the designs were. (A.Kelly, Mrs Coade's Stone, London 1980, pp.170-171.)