Il pollo coraggioso
Romeo / Robert Coates

Il pollo coraggioso
The game chicken
satirical print published by William Holland - 1811

Romeo Coates, alias Robert Coates, in profile to the left, drives a pair of rather clumsy horses in a grotesque curricle. Its body is a large chamber-pot, on which Coates sits, his thin legs dangling. This is inscribed 'Cock a Doodle Doo!' above a monogram in which the letters 'R C' are decipherable. The carriage and harness are decorated with crowing cocks in the round (? of brass); and one sits on Coates's head, serving as a hat. Cocks in relief decorate the harness.

Robert Coates (Antigua 1772 – London 1848), often called Romeo Coates, was a West Indian-born heir to significantly profitable, sugar-growing slave plantations. As a young adult, he emigrated to England. Lacking heirs of his own, he lived off his fortune in comfort for the rest of his life. Coates is numbered among the ranks of famous British eccentrics because of his unusual career as an amateur actor. His self-image included a highly mistaken belief in his own thespian prowess. After professional theatrical producers failed to cast Coates in significant roles, he used his family fortune to subsidize his own productions in which he was both the producer and the lead actor. His favourite part was Shakespeare's Romeo, hence his widely-used nickname.