Details of Sculptor

Surname

Coffin

Alternative Surname

First Name

Edmund, of London

Initial of Surname

C

Year of Birth/Baptism

1761

Flourished

Year of Death

1826

Biographical Details

He attended the Royal Academy Schools to study sculpture in October 1785, winning a medal ten years later (20) and was an honorary exhibitor at the Royal Academy in 1787. In 1788 he was living at 13 Poland Street, the same address as the wax modeller John Charles Locheé who was no doubt influential on Coffin’s technique. Gunnis, who owned Coffin’s ‘beautifully modelled’ wax portrait of Louis XVI (5), appreciated Coffin’s ‘great delicacy of treatment’ (Gunnis 1968, 110).
By 1793 Coffin was living in a large house at 4 Mary Street, Tottenham Court Road, where he remained for the rest of his life. He exhibited works, mainly wax models, at the Royal Academy until 1803. His name appears in the Workmens Ledger 1793-99 of the silversmiths John Wakelin and Robert Garrard, and he exhibited models for silver candelabra that may be connected with them (22, 23). He also produced at least one monument, a large wall-tablet to John Cole (1).
He died in 1826. He is described in his will, proved on 15 August 1826, as a ‘Sculptor of St Pancras.’ He left a wife, Sarah, and five children, to whom he bequeathed numerous properties, over £600 in cash, and annuities. Given that most of these properties were in Exeter it seems likely that Coffin was a native of the town and a relative of Edmond Coffin of Exeter.
Literary References: Graves II, 1905-6, 95; Hutchison 1960-62, 148; Gunnis 1968, 110; RG/JP, 3, 367; Pyke 1973, 31
Will: PROB 11/1715