CIRCA 1845-55, DESIGNED BY A.W.N. PUGIN AND MANUFACTURED BY JOHN HARDMAN & CO., BIRMINGHAM

These gasolier lights, commissioned by Colonel Robert Myddelton Biddulph (d.1872), have reed-twisted stems and trefoiled 'glass shade' coronas that correspond directly to the medieval ornament of the chandelier designed in 1846 by the architect A.W.N.Pugin (d.1852), for the Cromwell Hall. The latter is clearly visible in both Sarah Myddelton and The Hon Mary Wombwell's 1862 watercolours of the Cromwell Hall, where it remained until being taken down in 1880 to make way for a billiard table light. Pugin had been the author of 'Designs for Iron and Brass Wirk in the style of the 15th and 16th centuries of 1836 and it was to the celebrated Birmingham 'Medieval Metalworker' John Hardman (d.1867), whose metal manufactory had been established shortly after his 1837 meeting with Pugin, to whom Pugin turned to realise his designs for the chandelier and wall-lights. Some of the original correspondence between Pugin and Hardman survives in the Myddelton archive, and is included with lot 502.

The patent may belong to the London Wholesale Furnishing Ironmonger, Smith and Brass-finisher F.J. Bray, who was listed in Hunter Street, Brunswick Square in the 1824 London Post Office Directory.