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Lot Essay
The George III Roman 'columbarium' vase-chamber and the ancient poets' histories of sacrifices at love's altar are recalled by these elegant French-fashioned wall-lights. Their candlesticks' pearled and palm-flowered vases and tazze issue from acanthus-wrapped branches; while poetic laurel-garlanded sacred urns crown their herm-tapered brackets that are wreathed by flowered ribbon-guilloches. In 1769, a Louis XVI luminaire d'applique à bougies of this pattern, and probably executed in the late 1750s by Philippe Caffieri, featured in L.-M. Van Loo's portrait of the Marquis de Marigny (S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, pl. 442.)
The pattern of drip-pan and nozzle is one found on the magnificent candelabra made by the Soho entrepreneur and inventor Matthew Boulton (d. 1809), for example, a similar drip-pan can be found on the tea-urn at Syon House and another variant is found on the King's Candle Vase at Saltram House, Devon (N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 2002, pp. 272 & 340)
The pattern of drip-pan and nozzle is one found on the magnificent candelabra made by the Soho entrepreneur and inventor Matthew Boulton (d. 1809), for example, a similar drip-pan can be found on the tea-urn at Syon House and another variant is found on the King's Candle Vase at Saltram House, Devon (N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 2002, pp. 272 & 340)