A PAIR OF GEORGE III GILTWOOD AND FAUX PORPHYRY TORCHERES
A PAIR OF GEORGE III GILTWOOD AND FAUX PORPHYRY TORCHERES

CIRCA 1800

Details
A PAIR OF GEORGE III GILTWOOD AND FAUX PORPHYRY TORCHERES
Circa 1800
Each circular shelf with fluted underside and leafy pendants supported on a tripartite base headed by rams' heads, and with hoof feet and X-form side supports, the plinth with incurved corners flanking a medallion with trailing vines, the leaf-tip banded base on three hairy paw feet, redecorated, possibly missing a further element to the top of plinth
57½in. (145cm.) high, 11¾in. (30cm.) diameter of top (2)
Provenance
Acquired from Jeremy Ltd., London (advertised in Architectural Digest, 1989).

Lot Essay

These stands for vases or candelabra are conceived as tripod altars dedicated to the Roman festive deity Bacchus. The golden tripods recall the bronze sacrificial altars such as were discovered at Herculaneum, and their palm-flowered and hollow-sided altar pedestals are coloured as trompe l'oeil Egyptian porphyry and stand on bacchic lion-paws. The tripods, reed-wrapped tazzae with thyrsic palm-flowered finials, are supported on ram monopodiae evoking the Feast of Bacchus. Their general form evolved from stands invented in the 1770s by the architect Robert Adam (d.1792), while their altar plinths relate to those of stands reputed to have come from Fonthill Abbey and restored by Thomas Chippendale Junior in 1802 for Stourhead, Wiltshire ( A. Mitchell, Stourhead Guide Book, London, 1997. p.28). This form of Roman tripod with their cross-tied monopodiae was popularised by a Tripod table pattern issued in Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807 (pl.X1X).

Stands of virtually identical form, with laurel-flowered plinths, are likely to have been introduced to Hinchingbrooke, Huntingtonshire, together with a circular table with similar paw-supported and tripod-altar frame, in the early 19th century by the 6th Earl of Sandwich and his Countess Louisa (see C. Hussey, 'Hinchingbrooke-II', Country Life, 13 April 1919, p.517, fig.6). The Hinchingbrooke set of four was exhibited by Jeremy at the Victoria & Albert Museum's CINOA International Art Treasurers exhibition, 1962 (pl.79, no.111). They were later sold by David Style, Esq., Wateringbury Place, Christie's House sale, 1 June 1978, lot 526 and again, from a Private Collection, Sotheby's New York, 23 January 1993, lots 272 ($96,000) and 273 ($63,000). They are illustrated in G. Beard and J. Goodison, English Furniture 1500-1840, 1987, p.196, fig.4.

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