Chapter XI: The Last Brasses. 1660-1773

The last few brasses are of little artistic value. (See Appendix.)

Robt. Shiers, 1668, is perhaps the best of them. He wears a long, flowing gown reaching to the feet and holds a book in his hand. Nicholas Toke is in Jacobean armour, but with a fall collar and long hair. Probably his figure was copied from an earlier brass, for his daughters, who are on a separate plate, are very crudely drawn.

The last two brasses are the only Georgian ones known to exist and they are separated by a great space of time from the others. Whether they were each engraved at the dates given on the plates or whether they were both done at the same time is difficult to say. Benjamin Greenwood’s brass is certainly the best, his wife’s figure being very crude. She has on a plain gown and a veil. He is in a coat with open skirts, a figured waistcoat, knee-breeches, and wig. He points to a skull with his left hand and to a ship with his right. Probably he was a merchant captain.

Both plates have a pair of cherubs’ heads in the upper corners and are upon separate gravestones; the engraving is very thin.

Thus we have seen the art of the engravers rise in the thirteenth century and die in the eighteenth.