The Borghese and Medici Vases
Coade
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
circa 1771
Materials
Coade stone on sandstone plinths
Place of origin
Lambeth
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 109017
Summary
Coade stone on sandstone plinths, the Borghese and Medici Vases, Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory, after the antique, c. 1771. A pair of artificial stone reproductions of the Borghese (NT 109017.1) and Medici Vases (NT 109017.2), produced by Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory, after the antique. A pair of monumental bell-shaped krater with gadrooned everted lips, carved with bas-reliefs. The Borghese Vase is moulded with a vine motif and a relief depicting the thiasus: a Bacchanalian procession presided over by Dionysus and his wife Ariadne. The lower section is gadrooned with paired mascarons shaped as satyrs’ heads. The vase is mounted on a tapering fluted stem and square plinth. The Medici Vase is moulded with a vine motif and a relief believed to show the story of Iphigenia. The lower section is moulded with spreading acanthus leaves and two fluted loop handles rising from paired satyrs’ heads on either sides. The vase is mounted on a tapering fluted stem and a square plinth. The Borghese Vase is stamped 'COADE | LONDON', the Medici Vase 'COADE, LONDON. | Fecit'. Mounted on sandstone plinths. The antique Borghese and Medici Vases are monumental bell-shaped krater sculpted from Pentellic marble in Athens in the second half of the 1st century BC. They are housed in the Louvre, Paris, and the Uffizi, Florence (respectively). For a detailed discussion of each vase see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 315-6, nos. 81-2.
Provenance
Purchased by Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale (1726-1804) from Coade's Artificial Stone Manufactory, c. 1771; purchased with part of the contents of Kedleston with the aid of the National Heritage Memorial Fund in 1987 when the house and park were given to the National Trust by Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (1924-2000).
Credit line
Kedleston Hall, The Scarsdale Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1987)
Makers and roles
Coade, manufacturer
References
Haskell and Penny 1981: Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique, The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500 - 1900, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 315-6, nos. 81-2. Gunnis 1968: Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851, London 1968, p. 304. Kelly 1990: Alison Kelly, Mrs Coade's stone, Upton-upon-Severn 1990, pp. 33, 37-8, 41, 169, 189, 200. Valpy 1986: Nancy Valpy, ‘Advertisements for Artificial Stone in the Daily Advertiser’, English Ceramic Circle Transactions, vol. 12, no. 3 (1986) pp. 206-226, pp. 209-216, 220-22.