By the early 19th century, the statue, fountain and attendant figures was described as "in a most wretched mutilated state; and the inscriptions on the base of the pedestal quite illegible". In 1875, it was removed during alterations in the square by Thomas Blackwell, of Crosse & Blackwell, the condiment firm (which had premises at № 20-21 Soho Square from the late 1830s until the early 1920s), who gave it for safekeeping to his friend, artist Frederick Goodall, with the intention that it might be restored. Goodall placed the statue on an island in his lake at Grim's Dyke, where it remained when dramatist W. S. Gilbert purchased the property in 1890, and there it stayed after Gilbert's death in 1911. In her will, Lady Gilbert directed that the statue be returned, and it was restored to Soho Square in 1938.