Lot Essay
Intended for busts, vases or candelabra, these golden brackets have Ionic wave-scrolled volutes enwreathed by Roman acanthus foliage. While derived in part from the court architect John Vardy's publication of a Roman vase-truss pattern by the Rome-trained artist and court architect William Kent (d. 1748); their Venus pearled enrichments are indebted to Robert Wood's 1753 engraving of an Apollonian temple-door truss, such as Vardy (d. 1765) introduced in 1758 in his work at Spencer House, London (see J. Vardy, Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. William Kent, 1744, pl. 20; R. Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra, 1753, pl. 47; and J. Friedman, Spencer House, London, 1993, fig. 55).