Lot Essay
The model for the present pedestal relates closely to a design for a similar tripod stand attributed to the architect James Wyatt (d.1813). An etching for the model is to be found as number 135 in the Descriptive Catalogue of Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory (1784), and the listing given as a triangular pedestal with "figures at the angles 3' 2" diam 3' 5½" 21 pounds". In Eleanor Coade's handbook to Coade's Gallery, the exhibition gallery that opened in 1799, the same model, which she considered suitable for a sundial, was listed as "No. 58. A triangular pedestal. The cornice supported by three cariatide female figures at the angles; the pannels much enriched from the Antique."
Five examples of this pedestal are documented. Possibly the first, surmounted by a tripod table supported on monopodia, after a design for a table in the House of the Cervi, Herculaneum, was supplied as early as 1783 to Sir John Griffin Griffin, later 1st Baron Braybrooke, of Audley End, Essex. A second was destined for the 2nd Duke of Northumberland at Syon House (date unknown), a third for Lord Arundell at Wardour Castle, Wiltshire (date unknown), the fourth for Orlando, 1st Earl of Bradford, at Weston Park, Shropshire and the fifth, ordered in 1815 by Mr Gibbons of the Oaks, Wolverhampton (now demolished). The present example, dated 1798, is quite possibly that which was exhibited as number 58 in Coade's Gallery a year later. To whom it might subsequently have been supplied is unknown.
Although examples of the present model of pedestal do not appear to have been previously offered, a related sundial tripod pedestal, incorporating the same three caryatid figures and supplied to Sir George Osborn of Chicksands Priory, Bedfordshire, was sold in these Rooms 13 June 1995, lot 56. Another, introduced at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, by Nathaniel, 2nd Baron Scarsdale (d.1837), was sold in these Rooms 5 July 1990, lot 89.
Five examples of this pedestal are documented. Possibly the first, surmounted by a tripod table supported on monopodia, after a design for a table in the House of the Cervi, Herculaneum, was supplied as early as 1783 to Sir John Griffin Griffin, later 1st Baron Braybrooke, of Audley End, Essex. A second was destined for the 2nd Duke of Northumberland at Syon House (date unknown), a third for Lord Arundell at Wardour Castle, Wiltshire (date unknown), the fourth for Orlando, 1st Earl of Bradford, at Weston Park, Shropshire and the fifth, ordered in 1815 by Mr Gibbons of the Oaks, Wolverhampton (now demolished). The present example, dated 1798, is quite possibly that which was exhibited as number 58 in Coade's Gallery a year later. To whom it might subsequently have been supplied is unknown.
Although examples of the present model of pedestal do not appear to have been previously offered, a related sundial tripod pedestal, incorporating the same three caryatid figures and supplied to Sir George Osborn of Chicksands Priory, Bedfordshire, was sold in these Rooms 13 June 1995, lot 56. Another, introduced at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, by Nathaniel, 2nd Baron Scarsdale (d.1837), was sold in these Rooms 5 July 1990, lot 89.