Lot Essay
The water-nymph designed in the early 1770's by the celebrated sculptor John Bacon (1740-1799.) derives from a famous antique marble of the sleeping Ariadne in the Vatican Museum.
Bacon's long-running association in providing models for Eleanor Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory at Lambeth began around 1767 and is reflected by this figure, described as a 'Naiade, sitting with an Urn for conveying water', which appeared in the firm's Catalogue, 1784, and in Coade's Lithodipyra of the following year. Here she appears on a rusticated-stone pedestal or couch, recalling the 'seated bride' in an antique bas-relief, (illustrated in Montfaucon's Antiquity Explained, vol. III, plate 41). The same figure was supplied for the 6th Earl of Coventry at Croome Court, Worcestershire, although only partially remaining, having been broken in half. In Coade's Gallery or Exhibition handbook of 1799, they refer to this figure as 'Sabrina', after the Nymph of the Severn, celebrated in John Milton's Comus and no doubt recalling the Croome Court Naiade, supplied at least ten years earlier.
One of the largest figures produced by the Coade factory was the Reclining River God. Again designed by Bacon. It was later incorporated by him in the bronze portrait group of George III and Father Thames for Somerset House in 1789. A superb example remains today of the River God at Ham House, Petersham, which Coade supplied for the 5th Earl of Dysart's Thames-side villa. Another was supplied, circa 1785 for the bleach works at Llewenni Hall, Denbighshire, together with a companion Naiade. Thomas Sandby (1721-1798) was the architect. Both these figures are now lost.
Sandby was the Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park, and with his brother Paul assisted him in the landscape-gardening, which became his principal occupation at Windsor. Among these was the formation of Virginia Water, the largest artifical lake in the Kingdom at that time. The original dam gave way and on it's rebuilding completed in 1785, Sandby constructed a series of grottoes and artificial ruins at the head of the Water.
The fashion in the eighteenth century for parkland embellished with river-side buildings or grottoes by water, such as in Lord Coventry's landscaped park at Croome Court, designed by the architects 'Capability' Brown (d. 1783) and Robert Adam (d. 1792) and again at Stourhead, Wiltshire, where the sculptor John Cheere's Nymph of the River Stour can be found, was flourishing.
This Naiade as well as the one at Croome are the only known examples surviving to date. Perhaphs her fine state of preservation may be accounted for by the fact that she, like other water-side figures was sited inside the niche of a grotto, in a landscape setting or perhaps, by the river-side.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
Antiquity Explained and Represented in Sculptures by the Learned Father Montfaucon, Vol.III, London 1722
A Descriptive Catalogue of Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory, London 1784
Coade's Lithodipyra, London 1785
Coade and Sealey, Coade's Gallery or Exhibition in Artificial Stone, London 1799
Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors, 1660-1851, London 1951, revised edition
Margaret Whinney, Sculpture in Britain, London 1964
Timothy Clifford, "John Bacon and the Manufactures", Apollo, October 1985
Alison Kelly, Mrs Coade's Stone, Upton-upon Severn, 1990
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Bacon's long-running association in providing models for Eleanor Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory at Lambeth began around 1767 and is reflected by this figure, described as a 'Naiade, sitting with an Urn for conveying water', which appeared in the firm's Catalogue, 1784, and in Coade's Lithodipyra of the following year. Here she appears on a rusticated-stone pedestal or couch, recalling the 'seated bride' in an antique bas-relief, (illustrated in Montfaucon's Antiquity Explained, vol. III, plate 41). The same figure was supplied for the 6th Earl of Coventry at Croome Court, Worcestershire, although only partially remaining, having been broken in half. In Coade's Gallery or Exhibition handbook of 1799, they refer to this figure as 'Sabrina', after the Nymph of the Severn, celebrated in John Milton's Comus and no doubt recalling the Croome Court Naiade, supplied at least ten years earlier.
One of the largest figures produced by the Coade factory was the Reclining River God. Again designed by Bacon. It was later incorporated by him in the bronze portrait group of George III and Father Thames for Somerset House in 1789. A superb example remains today of the River God at Ham House, Petersham, which Coade supplied for the 5th Earl of Dysart's Thames-side villa. Another was supplied, circa 1785 for the bleach works at Llewenni Hall, Denbighshire, together with a companion Naiade. Thomas Sandby (1721-1798) was the architect. Both these figures are now lost.
Sandby was the Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park, and with his brother Paul assisted him in the landscape-gardening, which became his principal occupation at Windsor. Among these was the formation of Virginia Water, the largest artifical lake in the Kingdom at that time. The original dam gave way and on it's rebuilding completed in 1785, Sandby constructed a series of grottoes and artificial ruins at the head of the Water.
The fashion in the eighteenth century for parkland embellished with river-side buildings or grottoes by water, such as in Lord Coventry's landscaped park at Croome Court, designed by the architects 'Capability' Brown (d. 1783) and Robert Adam (d. 1792) and again at Stourhead, Wiltshire, where the sculptor John Cheere's Nymph of the River Stour can be found, was flourishing.
This Naiade as well as the one at Croome are the only known examples surviving to date. Perhaphs her fine state of preservation may be accounted for by the fact that she, like other water-side figures was sited inside the niche of a grotto, in a landscape setting or perhaps, by the river-side.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
Antiquity Explained and Represented in Sculptures by the Learned Father Montfaucon, Vol.III, London 1722
A Descriptive Catalogue of Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory, London 1784
Coade's Lithodipyra, London 1785
Coade and Sealey, Coade's Gallery or Exhibition in Artificial Stone, London 1799
Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors, 1660-1851, London 1951, revised edition
Margaret Whinney, Sculpture in Britain, London 1964
Timothy Clifford, "John Bacon and the Manufactures", Apollo, October 1985
Alison Kelly, Mrs Coade's Stone, Upton-upon Severn, 1990
xx