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Lot Essay
The elegant Roman-patterned lamp has Bacchic leopard masks with Egyptian headdresses embellishing both its golden reed-wrapped oil-vase and the oak-wreath framing its glass tazza. The former is of wine-krater form, while the tazza bowl is crystal-cut in sun-rays garlanded by Bacchic pine-cones and its finial comprises a palm-wrapped Bacchic thyrsus. Among the manufacturers of such Roman or antique-pettered lamps was the Fetter Lane brass-founders Johnson-Brooks & Co., who featured one on their trade-sheet issued in 1811 (J. Bourne, Lighting in the Domestic Interior, London, 1991, fig. 448).
A pair of chandeliers with identical ormolu rims but fitted with cut-glass are illustrated in M. Mortimer, The English Glass Chandelier, Suffolk, 2000, p. 25, col. pl. 17 and p. 139, pl. 83 (shown with shades). The pair has been attributed to the firm of John Blades (d. 1829) of Ludgate Hill, London. Blades's connections in the Middle East and India were extensive and a branch firm called Blades adn Matthews was set up in Calcutta. The referenced pair was retrieved in India by New York dealer Albert Nesle in 1955.
A related lamp was sold anonymously, Sotheby's, London, 10-11 June 1998, lot 339.
A pair of chandeliers with identical ormolu rims but fitted with cut-glass are illustrated in M. Mortimer, The English Glass Chandelier, Suffolk, 2000, p. 25, col. pl. 17 and p. 139, pl. 83 (shown with shades). The pair has been attributed to the firm of John Blades (d. 1829) of Ludgate Hill, London. Blades's connections in the Middle East and India were extensive and a branch firm called Blades adn Matthews was set up in Calcutta. The referenced pair was retrieved in India by New York dealer Albert Nesle in 1955.
A related lamp was sold anonymously, Sotheby's, London, 10-11 June 1998, lot 339.