William John Coffee (1773–ca. 1846), sculptor, painter, and ornamentalist, was baptized in London, England. Having honed his craft in the Midlands at the Derby China Manufactory and the Pinxton China Works, in about 1804 he became an independent modeler and sculptor in Derby. Coffee immigrated to the United States in the winter of 1816–17. With New York City as his base, over the years that followed he also worked in Montreal; Charleston, South Carolina; and Virginia. In 1818 Coffee executed terra-cotta busts from life of prominent Virginians including TJ and James Madison (neither of which survive) and various other members of their families. Examples of his handiwork are reproduced elsewhere in this volume. During the 1820s TJ commissioned Coffee to clean and restore paintings at Monticello and create architectural ornaments for both Poplar Forest and the University of Virginia. He relocated by 1827 to Albany, where he continued to work as a sculptor and painter (Brian R. Bricknell, William John Coffee, 1773–c. 1846 [1998]; Groce and Wallace, Dictionary of Artists description begins George C. Groce and David H. Wallace, The New-York Historical Society’s Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564–1860, 1957 description ends , 135; Bush, Life Portraits description begins Alfred L. Bush, The Life Portraits of Thomas Jefferson, rev. ed., 1987 description ends , 71–2; Coffee to TJ, 5 Jan. 1820, 1 Nov. 1821, 25 June 1822, 20 Dec. 1824; TJ to Coffee, 10 Apr. 1823; Longworth’s New York Directory description begins Longworth’s American Almanac, New-York Register, and City Directory, New York, 1796–1842 (title varies; cited by year of publication) description ends [1826]: 132; T. V. Cuyler’s Albany Directory, for the year 1827 [1827], 27; DNA: RG 29, CS, N.Y., New York, 1820, Albany, 1830, 1840).