Lot 100
100
The Property of The LORD BROCKET WILL TRUST Sold By Order of the Trustees (Lots 100-103)
A PAIR OF GEORGE III GILTWOOD TORCHERES by Thomas Chippendale, each with dished circular top edged with beading and laurel, on a turned tapering fluted support with stiff-leaf base above a band of guilloche and on a stiff-leaf column with a further fluted band and inverted stiff-leaf cup base, the canted spreading concave-sided plinth centred on each side by a Diana mask in a beaded and fluted oval amidst acanthus scrolls, the panelled angles headed by ram's masks linked by ribbon-ties and laurel, with laurel trails, the base edged with guilloche and on tapering stiff-leaf turned feet, minor losses to applied decoration on the base

Details
A PAIR OF GEORGE III GILTWOOD TORCHERES by Thomas Chippendale, each with dished circular top edged with beading and laurel, on a turned tapering fluted support with stiff-leaf base above a band of guilloche and on a stiff-leaf column with a further fluted band and inverted stiff-leaf cup base, the canted spreading concave-sided plinth centred on each side by a Diana mask in a beaded and fluted oval amidst acanthus scrolls, the panelled angles headed by ram's masks linked by ribbon-ties and laurel, with laurel trails, the base edged with guilloche and on tapering stiff-leaf turned feet, minor losses to applied decoration on the base
13¼in. (23.5cm.) diam., at top; 60¾in. (154cm.) high; 22in. (56cm.) wide, at base (2)
Provenance
Supplied to Sir Penistone Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne (1748-1819), for the Saloon of Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire, circa 1773
Thence by descent to Admiral of the Fleet Lord Walter Talbot Kerr, G.C.B., Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire, sold Messrs. Foster house sale, 9 March 1923, lot 364
Acquired at that sale by Sir Charles Nall-Cairn, Bt., 1st Lord Brocket (d. 1934)
Thence by descent at Brocket Hall
Literature
James Paine, Noblemen and Gentlemen's Houses, 1783, pl. LVIII
H. Avray Tipping, Country Life, vol.LVIII, 4 July 1925, p. 96
H. Avray Tipping, English Homes, Period VI, vol. I, London, 1926, p. 19, fig. 30
C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. I, p. 263 and vol. II, p. 10, figs. 18-19 and p. 209, fig. 381

Lot Essay

These torcheres or candlestands are among the most successful of all Chippendale's designs. Christopher Gilbert gives the greatest compliment of all: 'The solid form encrusted in delicate ornament creates an impression of concentrated richness which makes many of Adam's equivalent designs appear over-elaborate and fussy - his furniture seldom expresses the robust confidence of Chippendale's work' (op. cit., vol. i, p. 263)

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