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Lot Essay
These two candelabra are fitted in the centre with perfume-burners wich seems an unusual combination. The habit of using incense to produce a pleasant smell is of very ancient date. In the 17th Century we find the earliest examples of censers that were based on a new principle: the evaporation of perfume. This novelty, called cassolette royale in the Livre Commode of 1691, consisted of a spirit lamp placed under a container on a tripod. During the 18th Century smaller perfume-burners became popular on the diner table to remove the smell of the previous course. Hernmarck concludes that the whole category of perfume-burners was a typical upper-class and wealthier bourgeoisie luxury.
Relying on the number of extant Dutch pieces, censers were never produced in large quantities in The Netherlands. Hernmarck only mentions one example of an incense burner in the collection of the Duke of Portland by a silversmith from The Hague, dated 1678.
Although slightly out of the scope because no perfume is burnt or heated, even silver potpourri's are rare in The Netherlands. Most of them can somehow be brought in relation to just one town, the town of Zutphen. In this tradition of objects in Dutch silver that were used to spread a sweet-smell, the present candelabra by Diederik Lodewijk Bennewitz, with its perfume burners surmounting the stem, take an almost unique place.
Comparative literature:
Clayton, M., 'Censers' in: The Collector's Dictionary of the Silver and gold of Great Britain and North America, London, New York, Sydney, Toronto, 1971.
Hernmarck, Carl,The Art of the European Silversmith 1430-1830, Amsterdam, 1977, pp. 223-225.
Dijk, Lydie van (ed.), Glans Langs de IJsel, zilver uit Zutphen, Deventer, Zwolle en Kampen, Zwolle, 1999, pp. 13-70.
See illustration
Relying on the number of extant Dutch pieces, censers were never produced in large quantities in The Netherlands. Hernmarck only mentions one example of an incense burner in the collection of the Duke of Portland by a silversmith from The Hague, dated 1678.
Although slightly out of the scope because no perfume is burnt or heated, even silver potpourri's are rare in The Netherlands. Most of them can somehow be brought in relation to just one town, the town of Zutphen. In this tradition of objects in Dutch silver that were used to spread a sweet-smell, the present candelabra by Diederik Lodewijk Bennewitz, with its perfume burners surmounting the stem, take an almost unique place.
Comparative literature:
Clayton, M., 'Censers' in: The Collector's Dictionary of the Silver and gold of Great Britain and North America, London, New York, Sydney, Toronto, 1971.
Hernmarck, Carl,The Art of the European Silversmith 1430-1830, Amsterdam, 1977, pp. 223-225.
Dijk, Lydie van (ed.), Glans Langs de IJsel, zilver uit Zutphen, Deventer, Zwolle en Kampen, Zwolle, 1999, pp. 13-70.
See illustration