Post in preparation.
The Mural Monument on the North Wall in St Mary's Parish Church Ross on Wye, Herefordshire.
This monument is something of a conundrum - it has all the hallmarks of a work designed and made in the Westminster workshop of Henry Cheere but there are several anomalies.
The curved support underneath the centre of the apron is inscribed Marsh, Ross.
The Biographical Dictionary .... Yale 2009 states Marsh of Ross and Bristol fl. 1776. erected in 1776 the monument to the "Man of Ross" - Ruper Gunnis says - "It is executed in coloured marbles and is so good that it gives the impression of being London rather than local work".
Given that Marsh inscribes no other monument I think it is fair to say that he was only responsible for mounting the monument on the wall rather than sculpting it.
There are other candidates for the work - William and Thomas Paty the Younger were certainly capable of executing works of this quality. Martha Lewis d. 1751
Two Monuments in Christ Church with St Ewen, Bristol.
James Paty.
Images below from the excellent website of Bob Speel see -
http://www.speel.me.uk/sculptplaces/bristolchristchewen.htm
Thomas Holmes d. 1761. - and ‘Also beneath this Trophy of the Victories of Death’, wife Mary, d.1789, and daughter Elizabeth.
Beneath the lower shelf under the inscription is a small
apron between two brackets. This has upon it two painted shields, and it is
between them that the sculptor signs, as Jas. Paty F, standing for ‘James Paty
fecit’. James Paty the Younger was from a significant family of Bristol
monumental sculptors and architects, working from the 1720s through to about
1800, and responsible for a variety of memorials in the Bristol churches and
surrounding areas. William Paty has already been noted as the architect for
Christ Church with St Ewen.
Thomas Paty is best known as an architect, but he also had a
thriving practice as a monumental mason, was an accomplished carver in stone
and wood. He worked with his brother, James Paty II, on a number of urban
developments in Bristol. Nothing is known of his background and training, or of
his wife, who probably pre-deceased him, for she is not mentioned in his will.
There were three children, John Paty II, William Paty and Elizabeth, who
married Thomas King of Bath. From 1777 onwards he worked in association with
his sons, who returned from London after studying at the Royal Academy, John as
a sculptor from 1772 and William as an architect. After their induction, the
firm was known as Thomas Paty and Sons. The workshop and family home were in
Limekiln Lane.
Paty was the only male member of the immediate family who
did not become a freeman of Bristol. This clearly placed him at no disadvantage
since the corporation consulted him regularly as an architect and employed him
as a stone carver and mason. In 1741-2 he worked under the architect, John Wood
the Elder, carving architectural ornaments on the Bristol Exchange (50), and at
the same period he was employed at Redland Court, providing all the wood and
stone carving in the chapel. A contemporary note on the chapel observes that
Paty ‘is generally esteemed one of the best Carvers in England, either in Wood
or Stone’, and that ‘all the Ornaments in the Chapel were designed and carved’
by him (Redland Chapel, Church Book, 18 October 1755, fol 29v). He was responsible
for the dressed masonry and carving at Clifton Hill House, designed by Isaac
Ware in 1746 (55), and at the Royal Fort House, designed by James Bridges,
c1758-60, where Paty worked on interior schemes with the plasterer, Thomas
Stocking, his next door neighbour and a regular member of his team. Paty was
the superintending architect for the Theatre Royal, Bristol between 1764-66, a
building inspired by Sir Christopher Wren’s theatre in Drury Lane, London. This
commission consisted largely of structural carpentry with appropriate
embellishments (54). He was also the mason and carver at St George’s,
Kingswood, near Bristol, between 1752 and 1756 (51). In 1768 Henry Hoare
engaged him to dismantle the famous Bristol Cross and to move it to Stourhead.
Most of Paty’s wall monuments subscribe to late-18th century
taste with their elegantly carved urns, floral swags, mourning women, reeded
decoration and classical devices. The exception is the ambitious, but graceful
monument to William Hilliard, executed around 1750 (11). This edifice is nearly
20 feet in height and is structured in three stages. The base is a rusticated
archway leading into the vault. Above that is a small gadrooned sarcophagus
flanked by putti, on which is set an imposing portrait bust, framed by a
triangular pediment on consoles. The upper zone has a pyramid supporting an
armorial shield.
A letter dated 24 April 1787 gives insights into Paty’s
marketing practice. A potential client, Charles Morgan, enquired about a tablet
for a kinswoman, Mrs Parry of Herefordshire. Paty sent him two roughly similar
designs for decorative urns, set on an oval ground of coloured marbles. He
readily admitted that the simpler of the two, which he priced at £12, had
already been used for another monument (42). The variant design ‘will be £18 to
£22 according to the relief given to the work but if the urn and part under it
should be thought too plain it may be ornamented so as to make the monument
look much better, which may be done from thirty shillings to five guineas’
(Glamorgan Archive Service, Cardiff (D/D Xgc 54). The embellishments and price
were variable, as the letter explained.
Between 1775 and 1779, when his brother died, Thomas and
John Paty II worked on the development of a number of new streets in Bristol.
Their workshops remained separate throughout. They played a major role in the
development of the Georgian city, where their repetitive designs satisfied a
market for quiet, conservative elegance. The Patys laid out Clare, High,
Bridge, Union and Bath Streets. Between 1763 and 1769 Thomas rebuilt Bristol
Bridge and the adjoining church of St Nicholas, where he designed and executed
a gothic tower and a spire for the church.
Paty’s assistants included James Allen of Bristol, who was
apprenticed to him in 1752 and Michael Sidnell, who assisted him at the Redland
chapel. His sons John and William no doubt received some training with him
before joining the Academy schools.
He appears to have died in reasonably comfortable
circumstances: his will, dated 2 May 1789, a couple of days before his death,
specified that his daughter, Elizabeth, should received £800 and her husband,
Thomas King, £250. John Paty was to receive a sum equivalent to the value of a
house that Paty had already given to his other son, William. The sons continued
the business from Limekiln Lane for a short time before John’s premature death
on 10 June 1789.
Paty appears to have been responsible for many of the
designs in the Paty Copybook, though positive identification is impossible
since they are unsigned and his technique is similar to his son, William’s.
They include 15 with funerary urns (nos 5, 9, 10, 22, 26, 29, 30, 42, 43, 44,
46, 48, 49, 60, 71), one with a putto leaning on an urn (no 87) and one with an
heraldic shield (no 102). There is a proposal for the principal front of the
Merchant Venturers’ Hall (no 125) and a design for a chimneypiece in the gothic
taste, inscribed ‘Statuary; £40.0’ (no 133). Several other attributed designs
for monuments appear in Henry Wood’s Monumental Masonry.
Paty’s brief obituary in the European Magazine for May 1789
described him as an ‘Architect and Statuary [of] Bristol’ and the Bristol
Journal called him an architect ‘whose extensive virtues, professional
abilities and strict integrity, will in this city ever be rever’d’ (BJ, 9 May
1789). His great achievement as a carver is the interior of the Redland Chapel.
In addition to the monuments listed below there are modest
memorials by Paty in a number of churches in the Bristol area.
IR
Literary References: Euro Mag, May 1789, 424; Gunnis 1964,
294-5; Nason 1983, 886-888; Beard 1981, 274; Whinney 1988, 256; Dale-Jones and
Lloyd 1989, 56; Lloyd 1989, 44; Colvin 1995, 742-3; Priest 2003, passim
Archival References: Paty/Morgan, 1787 (quoted in Lloyd
1989, 44); Paty Copybook
Additional MS Sources: St George, Kingswood, Book of
Commissioners, 1751-64; St George, Kingswood, Chamberlain's cash accounts,
1752-64
Collections of Drawings: Paty Copybook; Wood’s Monumental
Masonry, nos 153, 226, 227, 230, 234, 235 (some perhaps by William Paty).
The Monument to Rothesia Ann Barrington (died 1745),
St Andrew's Parish Church, Shrivenham, Berks.
An unedited list of works by the Paty family - this information needs checking!
The Exchange, Bristol (1741–43).
Monument to Rothesia Ann Barrington (died 1745); St.
Andrew's parish church, Shrivenham, Berkshire
Monument to William Jones in Church of St Nicholas and the
Blessed Virgin Mary, Stowey, Somerset
Royal Fort, Bristol (1758–61).
Fonmon Castle, Vale of Glamorgan (1762), with Thomas
Stocking
Bristol Bridge (1763–69), with James Bridges.
St Nicholas, Bristol (1763–69), with James Bridges.
Theatre Royal, Bristol (1764–66).
Monument to Sir Robert Cocks (died 1765); St. Peter's parish
church, Dumbleton, Gloucestershire.
Monument to Thomas Esbury (died 1766); St. Mary's parish
church, Hawkesbury, Gloucestershire.
Monument to Edward Peach (died 1770); St. Mary's parish
church, Woodchester, Gloucestershire.
St Michael on the Mount Without, Bristol (1775–77).
Monument to John Nelems (died 1742, monument erected 1778);
St. Mary the Virgin, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire.
Plaque to the Fitzherbert family in the Church of St Mary
and St Ethelbert, Luckington, Wiltshire.
1–5 Beaufort Buildings, Bristol (1780).
Monument to Thomas Hobby (died 1781); St. Michael's parish
church, Hill, Gloucestershire.
Monument to Priscilla Thorne (died 1783); St James Church,
Swimbridge, Devon.
Monument to Samuel Peach (died 1785); St. Mary's parish
church, Olveston, Gloucestershire.
Monument to Arthur Tucker (died 1785); St. Michael's parish
church, Winterbourne, Gloucestershire.
3–10 Bath Street, Bristol (c. 1792).
Possibly Ston Easton Park, Somerset.
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Charles Heath of Monmouth writing in the Excursion down the Wye from Ross to Monmouth .......1799 described the creator? as Mr Marsh statuary in Bristol. - an extract below
MR. KYRLE's MONUMENT, AGAINST THE NORTH WALL OF THE CHANCEL.
Mr. POPE has added the following Note to his Lines on Mr. KYRLE:
The person here celebrated, who with a small estate actually performed all these good works, and whose true name was almost lost (partly by the title of the Man of Ross, given him by way of eminence," and partly by being buried without so much as an Inscription) was called Mr. John Kyrle.
He died in the year 1724, aged 90, and lyes interred in the chancel of Ross church, in the county ofHereford."
If the Writer cannot confirm the assertion of POPE, that he was buried without a MONUMENT, INSCRIPTION, STONE!" it was not till the year 1776 that a proper tribute of respect was paid to his memory; at which time, Lady BETTY DUPLIN left a sum of money, chargeable on her estates, now the property of W. Money, esq. for that purpose: in consequence of which, a very hand some monument was in that year erected, against the nörth wall of the chancel, the workmanship of Mr. Marsh, Statuary, in Bristol.
It is of a pyramidical form; the tablet of lilack, the upper part of beautiful variegated marble. At the top
is a fine bust, in relievo, of Mr. Kyrle; below it. three figures also in the same taste, that on the left hand holding a cornucopia reversed; which may be the symbol of Benevolence, or Charirity dispensing Plenty: at the bottoru are his arms, with the motto " VIRTVTE ET FIDE."
On the Tablet is this simple inscription, in gold letters :
This MONUMENT was Erected in Memory of
MR. JOHN KYRLE, commonly called
The MAN of ROSS.
Very considerable doubts are entertained in Ross, respecting the truth or fallacy of Mr. POPE'S remark,
viz. That MP. Kyrle was buried without the least memorial being placed oyer his remains." Mr. Delahay, the present Clerk, says, that his predecessor Mr. Hardwick informed him (and no person's testimony would be received with greater respect, not only from filling a responsible situation in the town himself, but because his father was a native of Ross resided in it all his life knew Mr. Kyrle perfectly well—and had related to his son many anecdotes respecting him.
The only monumental record to Mr. Kyrie's memory was A FLAT STONE, with the INITIALS OF his name
William Dobbs, who present at the conversation, and whose advanced age (84) as well as having spent his life in Ross intitles him to equal credit, persisted in his former declaration. An opinion in favor of Mr. Hardwick's information was declared by a friend. because the sharpness of the chisel, and form of the letters, are convincing marks that they are of the date of very late vears.
The writer bows with deference to superior judgment, - but adds, That though there is an appearance of uniformity in the inscription, it ought not to lead to an actual decision. because Mr. James Prosser of the King's Head, ordered to be added, at his own expence, name Of Weale,
From the Bust which surmounts this inscription the Writer is of opinion, that a much juster idea may beof Mr. Kyrle's countenance, than from any of the Pictures before mentioned, if Mr. Marsh took the cast from any authority then in being; which is more than we at present know of.
The whole of the monument is in the finest preservation
The following INSCRIPTION is on the Stone under which the Kyrle family lie interred.
John Kyrie. Esq. died Nov. 7, 1724, aged 88.
Vand. Kyrle, Esq. died October 5, 1727, aged 55.
Robert Kyrle, Esq. died March 13, 1736, aged 3 r.
Mrs. Frarres Kyle, died February 9, 1744, aged 67.
Mr. Walter Kyrle, died January 14, 1775, aged 70 years.
Mrs. Elizabeth Weale, died 23d March 1779, aged 75 years.
ARMS.—A chevron, between three fleur de lys crescent of second for a difference.—CREST, A hedgehog.
75.4 x 63.5 cm)
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Another version is currently with London Dealer Philip Mould.
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