A very similar pair was sold by order of the Executors of the late John Tillotson in these Rooms, 29 November 1984, lot 91, and was acquired by the Leeds City Art Galleries, Temple Newsam House. They are engraved with a ducal coronet above the initial N, thought to be that of the 4th Duke of Newcastle, and were probably supplied to him for Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire. Clumber was a mid-18th century house, but was altered in 1829 by Sidney Smirke, (demolished c. 1938). It is thought that the Newcastle lamps were supplied by Thomas Messenger of Birmingham and London 1826-7. Their design is based on Piranesi's engraving of a funerary monument from the Vasi of 1778. (see: C. Gilbert and C. A. Wells-Cole, Exhibition Catalogue, The Fashionable Fire Place, 1660-1840, Temple Newsam House, 1985, no. 76). Another pair, labelled Bright & Co. (late) Argand & Co., Bruton Street, was sold anonymously in these Rooms, 17 November 1988, lot 8. A bronze pair with very similar mechanisms to the present lot were sold in these Rooms, 19 April 1990, lot 7