The arms are those of Arundell with those of Conquest on an escutcheon of pretence, as borne by Henry, 7th Baron Arundell of Wardour, born in 1740 who married in 1763 Mary Christina, daughter and heiress of Benedict Conquest of Irnham Hall, Lincolnshire. In 1771 he began the rebuilding of Wardour Castle and it seems likely that these candlesticks formed part of the refurbishing. He died in 1808 without issue and was succeeded by his cousin.

The use of Fontainebleau-esque caryatids for candlesticks can be traced back to the 16th Century, in the published work of Jacques Androuet Ducerceau, while designs by Jean le Pautre published in the third decade of the 17th Century would appear to have been the inspiration for a small group of silver candlesticks usually attributed to Anthony Nelme's workshop. A pair of candelabra of this form with two light branches, unmarked and dating from the end of the 17th Century, is in the Mallett Bequest at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The present pair were evidently made to match other examples from Nelme's workshop. Four examples by Thomas Heming, 1770, of similar form to the present examples, were sold by Sotheby's, London, March 3, 1964, lot 157. .

Caption: Jean le Pautre (1618-1682), design for a caryatid, probably from the Nouveau Livre de Termes (E.6703-1908), reproduced courtesy of the Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London