When the first coach quarters were covered with leather, they were nailed on and the heads showed. After 1660 these nail heads were covered with a strip of metal made to imitate a row of beads; from this practice arose the name of “beading,” which has been retained, although beading is now made in a continuous level piece, either rounded or angular.
The use of coaches had by this time spread from Europe to the colonies, and in 1740 there were many coaches and chariots in use at Spanish Town, Jamaica, and other large towns in America, wherever colonised by Europeans.
A Coach of Silver--Lord Castlemaine’s Coach--Spanish Ambassador’s Coach--Ancient Spanish Coach--Austrian State Coach--State Funeral Coach at Vienna--State Coach of England--City State Coach.
In Count Gozzadini’s work on Ancient Carriages there is an account of a State Coach which was built under the direction of an Italian at Brussels, for the ceremony of the marriage of Alexander, the son of Octavius Farnese, Duke of Parma, with a Portuguese princess. The wedding took place in 1565 at Brussels. There were four carriages Flanders fashion, and four coaches after the Italian fashion, swinging on leather braces. The chief, or state coach, is described as built in the most beautiful manner, with four statues at the ends, the spokes of the wheels like fluted columns. There were seraphims’ heads at the ends of the roof and over the doorway, and festoons of fruit in relief on the framing of the body. The coachman was supported by two carved figures of lions, two similar lions were at the hind end, and the leather braces that supported the body and the harness were embossed with heads of animals. The ends of the steps were serpents’ heads. The whole of the wood and ironwork was covered with gold, relieved with white. The coach was drawn by four horses, with red and white plumes of feathers, and the covering of the body and of the horses was gold brocade with knotted red silk fringe. The cushions of embroidered gold stuff were perfumed “with amber and musk, that infused the soul of all who entered the coach with life, joy, and supreme pleasure.” The horses were cream colour. All this description would fit very much with the coach of the Duke of Saxe Coburg built twenty years later [Plate No. 10], except that the carving of the Brussels coach was superior, which is probably due to Capt. Francisco Marchi, of Bologna, who designed the whole.