06 Dec examples of carved brick as architectural ornament in boston

i’ve researched ornamental carved brick for sometime now, but lacked any extensive and/or detailed visual documentation of it in situ. fortunately, i ran across a wide array of examples on houses (built between the late 1870’s and mid-1880’s) located in and around boston’s back bay.

i suspect the carved brick i documented was likely executed by the perless brick company in philadelphia, pa. they specialized in making dense carving bricks that were rich in color and homogeneous in texture. the dense solid face brick was either carved directly on the wall or formed into panels and carved in the company’s workshop before installation.

if i can make time, or perhaps over multiple visits, i can begin creating an exhaustice photographic study of any and all extant examples of carved ornamental brick used on 19th century buildings in the boston area. i’ve included a few images of examples found while documenting architectural ornament near h.h. richardson’s trinity church.