SECOND-HALF 19TH CENTURY, REDECORATED

The stands for vases or candelabra are black-japanned to resemble antique bronze and conceived in the manner of Roman tripod altars, as popularised by a pattern introduced around 1800 at his Duchess Street mansion/museum by Thomas Hope (T. Hope'’s, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807, pl. 9). A similar pair of Regency torcheres served to display Grecian black figure vases in the Drawing Room at Capesthorne Hall, Cheshire, where they were illustrated in situ around 1840 in a watercolour by James Johnson (J. Cornforth, English Interiors 1790-1848, London, 1978, fig 76).