A GEORGE IV LACQUERED-BRASS EIGHT-BRANCH CHANDELIER

細節

A GEORGE IV LACQUERED-BRASS EIGHT-BRANCH CHANDELIER
The turned body with fluted pinched urn with reeded finial on the downswept top, on a spreading plinth with laurel swags and flowerhead issuing eight foliage-wrapped and gadrooned scrolled serpentine branches, each with pierced foliage drip-pan, suspended by eight foliate chains supported by scrolling foliage hooks joined to a turned and fluted lappeted corona with berry finial, the base of the chandelier with gadrooned circle issuing a foliage finial with pinched neck, in the late 19th Century four additional branches were added to each main branch
57 in. (170 cm.) high; 63 in. (160 cm.) diam.

來源

Supplied to William, 1st Earl of Lonsdale (d. 1844) for Lowther Castle, Penrith, Westmorland and thence by descent.

拍品專文

The chandelier is designed in the early 19th Century Louis Quatorze manner with acanthus-wrapped branches tied by a flowered ribbon-band to a reed-gadrooned and palm-finialed tazza, and a krater-vase for colza oil displayed on a husk-festooned altar pedestal. Another chandelier of this pattern by Thomas Messenger and Sons was sold anonymously, Christie's South Kensington, 13 April 1994 (lot 449). A related chandelier also featured on a trade card issued by Messengers of Birmingham, who were manufacturers of 'Chandeliers, Tripods and Lamps of every Description in Bronze and Or-Molu' and opened their London branch in the mid-1820s (E. Moncrieff, 'Argand Lamps', Antique Collector, February 1990, p. 47).

This chandelier formed part of the furnishings commissioned by Sir William Lowther, created Earl of Lonsdale in 1807 (d. 1844), and supplied for Lowther Castle, Westmorland following its aggrandisment by Robert Smirke in 1810. It appears in a photograph of the gallery taken in the late 1880s.