CIRCA 1800

Eleanor Coade's 'Artificial Stone Manufactory' was established at King's Arms Stairs, Narrow Wall, Lambeth - now the site of the Royal Festival Hall. Eleanor Coade (1708-1796) and her daughter, also Eleanor (1733-1821), founded the business in partnership with a Daniel Pincot in 1769, who had been manufacturing artificial stone in Lambeth during the 1760's. Eleanor Coade was one of a handful of independent women in the 18th century who began their own businesses and then 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. 'Coade' stone, a manufactured stone meant to mimic limestone, was made from a mixture of ground glass, flint, sand, clay and petrified clay, a combination which often turned out to be more durable than the stone it was imitating. The mixture was then poured into moulds, dried, fired in kilns and finished by hand.

The business flourished from the time of its creation and by the early 1770's had teamed up with the neoclassical sculptor John Bacon, who was to remain their leading designer until his death in 1799.

Coade made more lions than any other animal, with designs for couchant and rampant poses in various sizes. Examples can be seen at Audley End, Essex, Kew Gardens and Paxton House, Scotland. Standing lions were the most challenging to make as result of the problems of supporting the body before the clay had hardened in the kiln. The present lot is closest to the example seen today on Westminster Bridge, modelled by William Woodington, and originally placed on the Lion Brewery, London in 1837. The Westminster Bridge lion is modelled in a slightly different pose and is not baring his teeth as in the present lot, but otherwise, the similarites are very close.