John Bryan: C.988-1928

Titles

John Bryan

Maker(s)

Production: Unidentified factory

Entities

• Figure
• Victorian Staffordshire figure
• Flat-backed figure

Categories

• Lead-glazed earthenware

Description

White earthenware fgure moulded in three parts, with separately moulded right arm, and lead glazed. Painted in underglaze black and in grey, red and flesh-pink enamels, and gilt.

John Bryan stand with his right hand holding a book and resting on the top of a short pillar; his left hand clasps his lapel. The figure is well coloured. He wears a shiny black three piece suit, with frock coat, a white cravat, breeches, black stockings and black shoes. He is very portly. His hair is grey and his eyebrows finely painted. The pillar is grey, with a brick-shaped pattern in the moulding, and the top of the book is red. The oval base has a chamfered edge to the top, on which ‘J. BRYAN’ is inscribed in raised and gilded capitals; below, a gilt line runs across the front. The underside is concave and glazed, with a central vent hole. The back is moulded and mainly painted.

Notes

History note: Messrs Mortlock’s, corners of Oxford St. and Orchard St. W. Bought on on March 15 1910 )for £2-2 (two guineas, or £2 two shillings) by Dr Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge, who notes: ‘It was priced £3.3 but I got the old gentleman to consent to reduce it’.

Legal notes

Dr J.W.L.Glaisher Bequest

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr

Dating

19th Century, Mid#
Victorian
Circa 1840 CE - 1850 CE

Note

John Bryan (1770-1856) was a Wesleyan minister, born at Llanfyllin. He was minister of various Welsh and English circuits from 1801-1824. Later he became a grocer in Leeds, and subsequently at Caernarvon. He was known for his preaching and for his many converts. Pugh identifies a number of Welsh clerical figures made in the 1840s, and suggests that they were made for the Welsh market.

Rackham (1935) lists this figure as of a type made chiefly by Sampson Smith at Longton, a factory listed in contemporary directories as a ‘manufacturer of figures in great variety’, which began around 1851 and continued to make figures in quantity into the early part of the twentieth century. But Sampson Smith figures, which were rarely marked, typically have a flat back and plain oval base. Meanwhile, there were many other, often smaller, manufacturers of figures working in Staffordshire at this time.

The source may be a lithograph of a figure in similar pose, signed ‘Eich Serchog, J.Bryan’ (yours sincerely, J. Bryan), held in the National Library of Wales.