Details of Sculptor

Surname

Reeves & Son

Alternative Surname

First Name

of Bath

Initial of Surname

R

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1778-1860

Year of Death

Biographical Details

The firm was responsible for hundreds of wall monuments in the south-west, particularly in Somerset. It was founded by William Reeves, who was succeeded by his son Charles, who took a Mr Holland briefly into partnership about 1825. Pigot’s Directory of Somerset, c1844, lists Charles and William B Reeves as statuaries and marble masons with premises at 26 Charles St, Bath. An undated advertisement on the verso of a design in the Paty family Copybook reads ‘Wm. Reeves and Son, Statuaries, Bath. Monuments, Chimneypieces, Tombs &c, &c’. The design in the Paty copybook could be by a member of the Reeves, Paty or another family, for it for is a standard shield-shaped memorial slab with beaded moulding and a cornice above on which is a gothic arch. There is a signature above the advertisement which appears to be that of Henry Wood: this has prompted Priest to suggest that the firm passed into Wood’s ownership.
Like the King family of Bath, the firm was able to rely on a number of stock designs, and they made repeated use of relief ornaments such as draped urns, lamps, weeping willows and grieving figures, sometimes executed in polychrome marbles. One of their more lively tableaux was the monument to John Millward (†1822), which was sent out to Jamaica. It has two crudely executed standing females in draperies, their arms clasped about one another, one of them pointing to a pair of covered urns decorated with armorial shields (45). A more refined piece of carving, the memorial to Daniel Steigenberger (†1823) in Bath, presents a grieving draped woman perched on a sarcophagus with a weeping cherub at her knee (46).
In 1824 and 1833 the firm made marble chimney-pieces for Stourhead, Wilts, and in the latter year were also paid for shields for the gate piers at the same house. For these the material used was Bath stone, carved with the arms of Colt and Hoare.
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 317; Priest 2003, 171-2
Archival References: GPC