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Lot Essay
The candle-vases are of wine-krater form, and with their palm-wrapped statuary marble bodies, foliate Grecian-scroll handles and stems wreathed by laurel and echinous enrichments, they correspond to a pair executed by Boulton and Fothergill of Soho, Birmingham about 1775 (see N. Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton, London, figs. 146 and 161, no. m). The latter likewise feature flowered and acanthus-scrolled branches with palm-wrapped nozzles and sunflowered pans, but they display bas relief medallions instead of pearled patterae.
A pair of related ram-handled vases, with the same candlebranches and Grecian-stepped plinths was supplied by the firm to Lord Digby of Sherborne Castle in 1775 (ibid., fig. 145); while their branches and Grecian stepped plinth feature on pillar-supported vases supplied at this period to the Earl of Bradford at Weston Park, Warwickshire (ibid., figs. 147-152).
Related patterae feature on one of their marble vase sketches included in their surviving Pattern Book No. 1 (ibid., fig. 161, no. i). The candle-branch pattern likewise features in their Pattern Book, as does the Grecian plinth (ibid., figs. 162, no. h and 164, no. d).
A pair of related ram-handled vases, with the same candlebranches and Grecian-stepped plinths was supplied by the firm to Lord Digby of Sherborne Castle in 1775 (ibid., fig. 145); while their branches and Grecian stepped plinth feature on pillar-supported vases supplied at this period to the Earl of Bradford at Weston Park, Warwickshire (ibid., figs. 147-152).
Related patterae feature on one of their marble vase sketches included in their surviving Pattern Book No. 1 (ibid., fig. 161, no. i). The candle-branch pattern likewise features in their Pattern Book, as does the Grecian plinth (ibid., figs. 162, no. h and 164, no. d).