A REGENCY ORMOLU AND CUT-GLASS EIGHT-LIGHT CHANDELIER

ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN B. BLADES, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON, CIRCA 1810

Details

A REGENCY ORMOLU AND CUT-GLASS EIGHT-LIGHT CHANDELIER
ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN B. BLADES, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON, CIRCA 1810
The central brass column with overarching pierced corona and oak-leaf band suspending cascades of droplets with eight trails of droplets reaching to the large circular oak-leaf ring, with palmettes and reeded nozzles with feather pattern cut-glass hurricane shades, above droplets reaching to a ring on the underside enclosing a large faceted circular drop, minor losses and restorations
53 in. (135 cm.) high; 28 in. (71 cm.) diameter

Provenance

Acquired by Sir Sydney Barratt from Leonard Knight Ltd., London, 10 March 1961 (as almost certainly by Matthew Boulton) and by descent.

Literature

M. Mortimer, The English Chandelier, Suffolk, 2000, p. 25, pl. 17 and again p. 139, pl. 83 (with storm shades).

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Lot Essay

The firm of John B. Blades was first listed in the London Guide for 1783 at 5 Ludgate Hill. The overall form of this chandelier relates to those seen in a print of Blades' showroom, designed by the architect J.B. Papworth in 1823 and published in Ackermann's Repository of Arts in 1823. As Mortimer comments (ibid., p.139) the fact that this chandelier has storm shades may suggest that it was intended for export, as most chandeliers sent to India were fitted with storm shades. Indeed, demand for chandeliers of this type in the Middle East and India led to the establishment of a sister company, Blades and Matthews, in Calcutta.
An almost identical chandelier - undoubtedly executed in the same workshop - sold Christie's London, Dealing In Excellence: A Celebration of Hotspur and Jeremy, 20 November 2008, lot 22.

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