MARK OF CRADDOCK & REID, LONDON, 1812

Sir Charles Henry Coote, 9th Bt. (1792-1864), was the son of Chidley Coote (d.1799) and his wife Elizabeth Anne. Between 1821 and 1824 Sir Charles built Ballyfin House, Mountrath, replacing a house built in 1778 by William Wellesley-Pole, 3rd Earl of Mornington, brother of the Duke of Wellington. The house was described as the grandest and most lavishly appointed early nineteenth century classical house in Ireland with an interior decorated with rich plasterwork and scagliola columns. The present plates form just a small portion of a vast service dating from 1812 which includes a massive pair of candelabra by Benjamin Smith (Lyon and Turnbull, London, 23 November 2008, lot 158), a suite of salvers by William Burwash, (Christie's, New York, 27 October 1992, lots 218 and 219); sets of dinner and soup plates (Christie's, New York, 19 October 1981, lots 110 and 111; also Christie's, London, 3 June 2015, lot 617) and a pair of chamber candlesticks by Story and Elliott (Christie's, New York, 30 October 1991, lot 166).