CIRCA 1850, IN THE GOTHIC TASTE, ATTRIBUTED TO HARDMAN & CO., BIRMINGHAM

The holly-branched chandelier, with fretted, flowered and foliated corona, epitomises the 'natural' floriated ornament of the 1840s promoted by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (d. 1852), antiquarian, architect and author. Conceived in Pugin's Louis XII fashion it recalls a foliated pinnacle at Beauvais that he illustrated in 'Details of ancient timber houses of the 15th and 16th centuries', 1836 (pl. 10) and relates to a pattern for 'branches for lights' issued in his designs for iron and brass work in the style of the XV and XVI Centuries, 1836 (pl. 26). Pugin encouraged the celebrated Birmingham metal manufacturer John Hardman to establish the 'Medieval Metalworkers' in 1837; and discussed the correct manner of cutting metal to produce this 'lightness, ease, and sharpness of real vegetation' in his Oscott lectures that were published in 1841 as The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, (p. 20). This elegant chandelier for gas typifies the Pugin-designed chandeliers and brass-work exhibited by Hardman & Co. at the 1849 Birmingham Exhibition of Manufacturers and at the Medieval Court of the 1851 International Exhibition, for which they both served on its 'Committee of Manufacturers'. Their related and most celebrated chandelier was that installed in 1855 in the New Palace of Wesminster's Peers' Lobby (see M.H. Port, The Houses of Parliament, London, 1976, pl. 111; and P. Atterbury and C. Wainwright, Pugin: A Gothic Passion, 1994, fig. 432).