Lot Essay
The pair are almost certainly those listed in the White Drawing Room, where they remained until the sale, in the privately printed catalogue of Mentmore, Edinburgh, 1884, vol.I, p.133, as '20. Light of giltmetal, with goat's heads and central spiral serpent. By GOUTHIERE/workmanship French; period Louis XVI./21. companion light'.
The remarkable collection at Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire was predominantly assembled by Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild (d.1874), who, ahead of contemporary taste, together with the 4th Lord Hertford, Leopold Double and Robert, Earl of Pembroke actively collected the finest examples of 18th Century French art in the 1840s and 1850s.
Through the marriage of his daughter and heiress, Hannah, in 1878, Mentmore passed into the Rosebery family.
Designed in the Louis XVI 'antique' manner, their arabesque-scrolled branches emerge from Alabastrons (or ovoid Grecian 'oil' urns) which are supported by 'athenienne' tripods whose bacchic satyr-headed and lion-footed monopodiae of spiralled reeds rest on addorsed bacchic goats that recall the Capitoline Museum's celebrated 'griffin' tripod. The goats recline on 'altar' plinths, embellished with vine garlands, fruit tazzae and laurel-wreaths, which support coiled 'Pythian' serpents reaching for fruiting thrysus-like finials projecting below the urns.
A similar pair of candelabra but with sphinxes instead of goats at the base was supplied in silver by Pierre Gouthière for the Grand Duke Paul of Russia and is now in the Palace of Pavlovsk (see: Kennet, The Palaces of Leningrad,pl.III). Another, almost certainly by Gouthière, was supplied by the marchand mercier Daguerre for Marie-Antoinette at St Cloud and is now in the Louvre. The widespread popularity of this model gives credence to the suggestion that the present garniture may not be French in origin.
A closely related example in Schlössverwaltung, Munich, is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Proschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, p.264, fig.4.9.2. A further example in the Louvre is illustrated in P. Verlet, Les Bronzes dorés Français, Paris, 1987, p.317, figs.349-350.
It is interesting to note that a pair of closely related candelabra with the sphinx, as opposed to goat-supports, was also in the collection of the Earls of Rosebery, sold Sotheby's house sale, Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire, 18 May 1977, lot 90 (illustrated in H. Ottomeyer & P. Proschel, op.cit., fig.4.9.3).
The remarkable collection at Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire was predominantly assembled by Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild (d.1874), who, ahead of contemporary taste, together with the 4th Lord Hertford, Leopold Double and Robert, Earl of Pembroke actively collected the finest examples of 18th Century French art in the 1840s and 1850s.
Through the marriage of his daughter and heiress, Hannah, in 1878, Mentmore passed into the Rosebery family.
Designed in the Louis XVI 'antique' manner, their arabesque-scrolled branches emerge from Alabastrons (or ovoid Grecian 'oil' urns) which are supported by 'athenienne' tripods whose bacchic satyr-headed and lion-footed monopodiae of spiralled reeds rest on addorsed bacchic goats that recall the Capitoline Museum's celebrated 'griffin' tripod. The goats recline on 'altar' plinths, embellished with vine garlands, fruit tazzae and laurel-wreaths, which support coiled 'Pythian' serpents reaching for fruiting thrysus-like finials projecting below the urns.
A similar pair of candelabra but with sphinxes instead of goats at the base was supplied in silver by Pierre Gouthière for the Grand Duke Paul of Russia and is now in the Palace of Pavlovsk (see: Kennet, The Palaces of Leningrad,pl.III). Another, almost certainly by Gouthière, was supplied by the marchand mercier Daguerre for Marie-Antoinette at St Cloud and is now in the Louvre. The widespread popularity of this model gives credence to the suggestion that the present garniture may not be French in origin.
A closely related example in Schlössverwaltung, Munich, is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Proschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, p.264, fig.4.9.2. A further example in the Louvre is illustrated in P. Verlet, Les Bronzes dorés Français, Paris, 1987, p.317, figs.349-350.
It is interesting to note that a pair of closely related candelabra with the sphinx, as opposed to goat-supports, was also in the collection of the Earls of Rosebery, sold Sotheby's house sale, Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire, 18 May 1977, lot 90 (illustrated in H. Ottomeyer & P. Proschel, op.cit., fig.4.9.3).