BY COADE, LAMBETH, DATED 1819

The origin of this lioness derives from the pair of Egyptian lionesses in basalt brought to Rome in antiquity and now at the base of the Scalinata on the Campidoglio in Rome. Charles Heathcote Tatham illustrated one of the lionesses in his influential Etchings, Representing the Best Examples of Ancient Ornamental Architecture; Drawn from the Originals in Rome, and Other Parts of Italy During the Years 1794, 1795, and 1796, London, 1799. A closely related lion was used in an advertisement by George Bullock in the Liverpool Chronicle, 13 March 1805, p. 2, col. 3 (see L. Wood, 'George Bullock in Birmingham and Liverpool', George Bullock, Cabinet Maker, Exh. Cat. 1988, p. 43, fig. 14). Mrs. Coade also produced this model in Coadestone and the etching for it, entitled Egyptian Lioness, is dated to the 1770s-80s. It is illustrated in A. Kelly, Mrs. Coade's Stone, Reading, 1990, p. 263.
Thomas Hope, the arbiter of early nineteenth-century decoration, bought his first lioness from Coade and Sealy between 1799 and 1813, however he had to be supplied with a new one in 1820, as the first had proved defective in some way. The present lot is almost certainly the second lioness supplied to Thomas Hope for his house the Deepdene, near Dorking in Surrey, now demolished. He used the design of the lioness in a design for a settee in his Egyptian Room in Duchess Street, shown in his influential Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, London, 1807, pls. 8 and 17/4. A pair of similar Coade Stone lions were also ordered by Robert Adam for Culzean Castle, Scotland.