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Lot Essay
The bronze colza-oil lamp, conceived as a festive urn-capped altar pillar, features a bacchic thyrsus-finial and lion-masked wine krater standing on a truncated column of Egyptian simulated porphyry. This burning vase form derives from an enraving of an antique cinerary vase or urn dedicated to William Constable in G. B. Piranesi's 'Vasi, candelabri, cippi...', 1778.
A related lamp, executed in the antique manner popularised around 1810 by the London firm of Messrs. B. Vulliamy & Sons, was supplied for Hopetoun House, Edinburgh by Smiths and Co., who had established premises in Blair Street, Edinburgh in 1770 and traded in lamps of every description (sold by The Marquess of Linlithgow, Hopetoun House, South Queensferry, Near Edinburgh, Christie's house sale, 19 July 1993, lot 124 (£12,650)). Such lamps are named Argand lamps after the 1780s invention of the Argand burner by Ami Argand (d. 1803).
A related lamp, executed in the antique manner popularised around 1810 by the London firm of Messrs. B. Vulliamy & Sons, was supplied for Hopetoun House, Edinburgh by Smiths and Co., who had established premises in Blair Street, Edinburgh in 1770 and traded in lamps of every description (sold by The Marquess of Linlithgow, Hopetoun House, South Queensferry, Near Edinburgh, Christie's house sale, 19 July 1993, lot 124 (£12,650)). Such lamps are named Argand lamps after the 1780s invention of the Argand burner by Ami Argand (d. 1803).