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Lot Essay
These bronzed-black and gilt-enriched 'guéridon' stands, serving for vases or candelabra, are designed in the early 19th century 'antique' fashion popularized by the connoisseur Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration of 1807, and are inspired by Roman tripod candelabra.
Tazza-bearing caryatic vestals stand like canephorae on triumphal palm-wreathed pillars, whose altar-tripod pedestals are born on bacchic lion-paws. The vestal figures, with bacchic tresses, derive from those supporting Thomas Hope's sideboard-table, which was conceived in the French antique manner for his 'Aurora' breafasting-room in Duchess Street, London, and symbolized the four 'horae' or 'parts of the day' (T. Hope, ibid., plate XIII, no. 3). In particular they relate to the figures of bronzed-plaster lamps, such as those modelled around 1800 by F. Hardenberg (d. 1832) of Hardenberg and Co., 'Petrification Manufacturers' of Mount Street, London. Smaller figures were executed by the Newport Street modeller and lamp-manufacturer James Deville, and also by the Holborn plaster-figure maker Robert Shout, whose 1806 trade-sheet advertised 'several hundred figures from the Antique'.
Various elements of the shafts of the stands also pay close attention to the designs of Hope. In particular, the 'beehive' turning with lappeted design above is evident in a drawing for 'candelabra or stands' as illustrated in plate L of his Furniture and Interior Decoration, while elements on the base, the paw feet and gadrooned molding, appear to the base of a torchère from the Statue Gallery at Duchess Street (T. Hope, ibid., pl. I).
Related stands, with bacchic paws and bacchic trophy enrichments but lacking figures were supplied in the early 19th century for Harewood House in Hanover Square, London (one pair was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1951, while another from Harewood House, was sold Christie's, house sale, 3 October 1988, lot 178).
Tazza-bearing caryatic vestals stand like canephorae on triumphal palm-wreathed pillars, whose altar-tripod pedestals are born on bacchic lion-paws. The vestal figures, with bacchic tresses, derive from those supporting Thomas Hope's sideboard-table, which was conceived in the French antique manner for his 'Aurora' breafasting-room in Duchess Street, London, and symbolized the four 'horae' or 'parts of the day' (T. Hope, ibid., plate XIII, no. 3). In particular they relate to the figures of bronzed-plaster lamps, such as those modelled around 1800 by F. Hardenberg (d. 1832) of Hardenberg and Co., 'Petrification Manufacturers' of Mount Street, London. Smaller figures were executed by the Newport Street modeller and lamp-manufacturer James Deville, and also by the Holborn plaster-figure maker Robert Shout, whose 1806 trade-sheet advertised 'several hundred figures from the Antique'.
Various elements of the shafts of the stands also pay close attention to the designs of Hope. In particular, the 'beehive' turning with lappeted design above is evident in a drawing for 'candelabra or stands' as illustrated in plate L of his Furniture and Interior Decoration, while elements on the base, the paw feet and gadrooned molding, appear to the base of a torchère from the Statue Gallery at Duchess Street (T. Hope, ibid., pl. I).
Related stands, with bacchic paws and bacchic trophy enrichments but lacking figures were supplied in the early 19th century for Harewood House in Hanover Square, London (one pair was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1951, while another from Harewood House, was sold Christie's, house sale, 3 October 1988, lot 178).