CIRCA 1755

These unusual candelabra are designed in the George II 'picturesque' manner popularised by patterns issued in Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754-1762 and the carver Thomas Johnson's Twelve Girandoles, 1755 and Collection of Designs, 1758. A closely related pair was in the collection at Coleshill House, Berkshire where a letter written by Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie records them on the library mantelpiece prior to 1889. The pair was later sold from the collection formed by Marjorie Wiggin Prescott, Greenwich, Connecticut, Christie's, New York, 31 January 1981, lot 78. One is illustrated in C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington, 18th Century English Furniture: The Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, 1983, p. 446. Another pair of similar design (en suite with wall brackets) may have been supplied to the 4th Earl of Shaftesbury as part of the refurbishing of St. Giles's House, Dorset (see A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, pl. 314).

These candelabra exhibit a green-painted scheme which appears to date to the 19th century. They are unusual with their original lead-weighted bases.