Details of Sculptor

Surname

Bryan family

Alternative Surname

First Name

of Painswick and Gloucester

Initial of Surname

B

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Joseph Bryan I 1682-1730
John Bryan I 1716-1787
Joseph Bryan II 1718-1779
John Bryan II fl c1795
A family of masons and carvers who had quarries at Painswick in the Cotswolds. The principal members were John Bryan I and Joseph Bryan II, sons of Joseph Bryan of Painswick. John I is described as ‘late of this town, carver’ on his large pyramidal monument at Painswick: he left bequests to his two daughters, Anne Bryan and Mrs Loveday. Joseph II established himself in Gloucester. His son, John II, married his first cousin Anne, the daughter of John I, and inherited the business. He went into partnership with George Wood of Gloucester c1795.
On 20 May 1760 Joseph II advertised in the Gloucester Journal that he ‘wanted a sober Mason that can work mouldings etc. in Free-stone ... . Apply Joseph Bryan in the City of Gloucestershire or to John Bryan in Painswick’. The same newspaper reported on 31 January 1785 ‘On Monday last died, in her 70th year of her age, Mrs Bryan, mother of Mr. Bryan, stone cutter, in this city’. The journal also noted, on 26 December 1808, that on ‘Thursday died Mrs. Bryan, relict of Mr. John Bryan, statuary, of the Black Friars in this City’.
Masonry-work executed by the firm included the tower of Great Whitcombe church, 1749, the rebuilding of the spire of Painswick church after it was destroyed by lightning in 1763 and the spire of St Nicholas, Gloucester, 1784. Their tablets and churchyard memorials have charming and well-carved details, while a delightful and intelligent use is made of coloured marbles. The polychrome wall-monument to Mary Singleton, †1761, in Gloucester Cathedral has a sarcophagus-shaped inscription tablet below a pyramid carved with a gloria: under the sarcophagus is a circular armorial panel, set off by confidently executed consoles (4). John Webb’s wall-monument (†1795) in Gloucester Cathedral has a large concave inscription tablet ornamented with Adamesque scrolls, paterae and crossed torches: above is a pyramid carrying knotted ribbons, a shield and a striated sarcophagus end, decorated with an oval relief of a rising phoenix (27).
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 66; Colvin 1995, 176-7
Archival References: GPC