Architectural sculpture. (Joseph) Thewlis (1862-1921) & Co. 1904. Stone. Leeds City Markets, Kirkgate and Vicar Lane, Leeds. Listed Building. Left: Podgy strategically-draped putti serve as mini-Atlantes for the ground floor entablature of the Markets. Right: Festive reliefs around the Vicar Lane entrance.
The Leeds City Markets' front elevation stone-carving” by Thewlis & Co. is elaborate but, apart from the rather overblown putti, delicate and somehow festive, with scrolling leaves, fruit, goblet-like motifs and so on. In the spandrels of the entrance are Art Nouveau maidens bearing cornucopia. Leeds was booming during this period: the whole suggests plenty — as does Thewlis's relief on Abtech House in Park Row, Leeds, though the latter conveys it through representative but highly realistic figures involved in turn-of-the-century international trading. The delicacy of the low-relief carving here helps lighten the rather overwhelming mass of the Markets' exterior.
Photographs, formatting, caption, and text by Jacqueline Banerjee, 2011. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
"1-21, Leeds" British Listed Buildings. Web. 15 October 2011.
"Joseph Thewlis." Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain & Ireland, 181-1951. Web. 15 October 2011.
Leach, Peter, and Nikolaus Pevsner. Yorkshire West Riding, Leeds, Bradford and the North. The Buildings of England series. New Haven & London: Yale, 2009.
Last modified 27 April 2018