PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF DENYS SUTTON Denys Sutton (d. 1991), long-reigning editor of Apollo, displayed a wide range of knowledge and many interests as exemplified by his writings on generations of collectors, museums and artists and his curatorial role in mounting various gallery exhibitions including the seminal "France in the Eighteenth Century" exhibition, held to great acclaim at the Royal Academy in 1968. He and his wife assembled a magnificent collection at their home in London and at Westwood Manor in Wiltshire (which was leased from the National Trust). This spring, Christie's was entrusted with the sale of exemplary works from his Old Master Paintings collection, which sold in January (and included a passionate depiction of the Penitent Mary Magdalen by Filippino Lippi), as well as British works by Cozens, Sickert, Roger Fry and Duncan Grant among others to be sold in London in June; and a Kokoschka to be sold in May.

A PAIR OF GEORGE III ORMOLU AND BLUE-JOHN CANDLESTICKS

BY MATTHEW BOULTON, CIRCA 1770

Details

A PAIR OF GEORGE III ORMOLU AND BLUE-JOHN CANDLESTICKS
BY MATTHEW BOULTON, CIRCA 1770
Each with a waisted fluted candle-nozzle above a laurel-garland swagged urn over a spreading fluted socle on a Greek-key-cast plinth above a cylindrical pedestal applied with lions' masks suspending further laurel garlands over a guilloche-decorated circular stepped base, the candle-nozzles probably replaced
10½ in. (26.5 cm.) high

Provenance

Denys Sutton.
By descent to the present owner.

Lot Essay

These vases comprise festive Grecian-stepped altar-pillars that are hung with bacchic lion-heads and capped by laurel-wreathed sacred urns evoking lyric poetry and sacrifices at love's altar. Such vases, with candle-nozzles concealed in their lids, were designed by Matthew Boulton as appropriate embellishment for the furnishings of a room decorated either in the French goût grec fashion or in the Etruscan 'columbarium' fashion promoted by Robert Adam (d.1792).
This vase pattern was invented for altar-pedestals bearing 'Cleopatra' medallions after the manner of a James Tassie gem, and feature in the Boulton pattern-book. It was perhaps this 'Cleopatra' pattern that Boulton was considering offering in 1770 to Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales (N. Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton, London, 1974, fig. 161, design r and p. 144; and Goodison op. cit., 2002, p 328).

A closely related pair of the present model are now in the Royal Collection and another similar pair were sold by Mr. S. Jon Gerstenfeld, Christie's, London, 25 November 2004, lot 60 (N. Goodison, op. cit., 2002, pl. 260 & 261 respecively). A further related pair was sold from The Estate of Esmond Bradley Martin, Sotheby's, New York, 30 October 2002, lot 176.

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