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Lot Essay
Giuseppe Valadier (d. 1839), master 1785-1817, took over the workshop of his father Luigi (d. 1785) on the latter's death. The firm had been founded in 1725 by his grandfather Andrea and was sold only in 1827, having been the leading silversmith and bronze-founders of Rome for a century.
The model for these candelabra is based on the two Egyptian Isis priest caryatides flanking the entrance of the Museo Pio-Clementino, which were originally part of the famous Roman villa of Hadrian at Tivoli. These figures appear as early as in the 1780s in the work of Luigi Valadier on three clocks (one made for the Borghese family, one until recently in the collection of the Baron de Redé, and the third in a private collection - A. Gonzáles-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Milan, 1984, vol. I, plate XXI). On these clocks the caryatid figures flank the dial and support the superstructure. This Egyptian figure later appears as a herm figure amongst the architect Charles Heathcote Tatham's sketches of Various bronzes for lights composed from the Antique' that he sent from Rome in 1796 to Henry Holland, architect of George, Prince of Wales's Carlton House, London. It is known that Tatham's drawings (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London) featured not only the work of Giuseppe Valadier (a sketch for two candelabra and a candlestick in the Victoria and Albert Museum is inscribed Designs by Giuseppe Valadier) but also of other craftsmen and designers such by Giuseppe Boschi. Interestingly the same figure also features in a design by the Fratelli Scheggi in the Magazzino di Mobilia of March 1798 fig. 52.
The model for these candelabra is based on the two Egyptian Isis priest caryatides flanking the entrance of the Museo Pio-Clementino, which were originally part of the famous Roman villa of Hadrian at Tivoli. These figures appear as early as in the 1780s in the work of Luigi Valadier on three clocks (one made for the Borghese family, one until recently in the collection of the Baron de Redé, and the third in a private collection - A. Gonzáles-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Milan, 1984, vol. I, plate XXI). On these clocks the caryatid figures flank the dial and support the superstructure. This Egyptian figure later appears as a herm figure amongst the architect Charles Heathcote Tatham's sketches of Various bronzes for lights composed from the Antique' that he sent from Rome in 1796 to Henry Holland, architect of George, Prince of Wales's Carlton House, London. It is known that Tatham's drawings (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London) featured not only the work of Giuseppe Valadier (a sketch for two candelabra and a candlestick in the Victoria and Albert Museum is inscribed Designs by Giuseppe Valadier) but also of other craftsmen and designers such by Giuseppe Boschi. Interestingly the same figure also features in a design by the Fratelli Scheggi in the Magazzino di Mobilia of March 1798 fig. 52.