Lot Essay
The ormolu-enriched candelabra of Derbyshire bluejohn, are designed in the Roman manner promoted by King George III's architect, Sir William Chambers. They are conceived as 'altar-supported urns' recalling the ancient virtue and 'sacrifices on the altar of love'. They were designed circa 1770 under the direction of Matthew Boulton (d.1809) and executed at Boulton and Fothergill's Soho workshops. Each has three candle-nozzles, designed as palm-wrapped and tazza-supported vases, upheld by voluted palm and acanthus-wrapped branches that are born by ram-heads.
Boulton first exhibited this vase pattern, with its 'round step' or 'round altar' pedestal in his London sale at Messrs. Christie and Ansell's on the 12 April 1771, lot 61, where it was described as: 'An altar radix amethysti and or moulu richly decorated in the antique taste on which is a vase of the same with three branches for candles - £17.6.0.' The branch pattern, features in Boulton's Pattern Book I, p. 19, no. 399 and is illustrated in N. Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of Mathew Boulton, London, 1974, fig. 162 (a). Boulton also manufactured this pattern with a statuary marble body, such as lot 46 from the 12 April 1771 sale at Christie and Ansell's.
This model and related vases with Grecian-fretted branches and inverted ribbons on the vase (N. Goodison, ibid, fig. 103) have been identified as Boulton's 'Burgoyne' pattern, presumably named after Colonel (later General) Burgoyne, son-in-law of the 11th Earl of Derby.
Boulton first exhibited this vase pattern, with its 'round step' or 'round altar' pedestal in his London sale at Messrs. Christie and Ansell's on the 12 April 1771, lot 61, where it was described as: 'An altar radix amethysti and or moulu richly decorated in the antique taste on which is a vase of the same with three branches for candles - £17.6.0.' The branch pattern, features in Boulton's Pattern Book I, p. 19, no. 399 and is illustrated in N. Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of Mathew Boulton, London, 1974, fig. 162 (a). Boulton also manufactured this pattern with a statuary marble body, such as lot 46 from the 12 April 1771 sale at Christie and Ansell's.
This model and related vases with Grecian-fretted branches and inverted ribbons on the vase (N. Goodison, ibid, fig. 103) have been identified as Boulton's 'Burgoyne' pattern, presumably named after Colonel (later General) Burgoyne, son-in-law of the 11th Earl of Derby.