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Lot Essay
This elegant pair of lamps bear elements closely resembling the designs of George Smith. The use of the palm-form stem is near identical to a drawing in Smith's A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture, London, 1808, pl. 112, for 'Drawing Room Candelabra', whilst the decoration of the base draws influence from the drawing for a 'Cheval Dressing Glass' op. cit., pl. 126. This latter design includes the monopodiae flanking the anthemia and shell, very close in design to the bases of the current lamps.
Patterns for related bronze candelabra with lion-monopodia tripods were published in Henry Moses, A Collection of Antique Vases, Altars, Paterae, Tripods, Candelabra, Sarcophagi, London, 1814 (pls. 83-86). The fashion was popularised in the early 19th century by bronze-founders such as Benjamin Vulliamy (d. 1821) and Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (d. 1854), who earned the epithet 'Furniture man' to George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV (R. Smith, Vulliamy and the Kinnaird candelabra, Apollo, January 1997, pp. 30-34).
Messenger and Sons of Birmingham and London illustrated a related stand in their 1830s trade-card stating that they were 'Manufacturers of Chandeliers, Tripods and Lamps of every description in Bronze and Ormolu' (C. Gilbert and A. Wells-Cole, The Fashionable Fire Place, Temple Newsam, 1985, fig. 95). Such Roman tripods were intended to support colza-oil vase candelabra.
Patterns for related bronze candelabra with lion-monopodia tripods were published in Henry Moses, A Collection of Antique Vases, Altars, Paterae, Tripods, Candelabra, Sarcophagi, London, 1814 (pls. 83-86). The fashion was popularised in the early 19th century by bronze-founders such as Benjamin Vulliamy (d. 1821) and Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (d. 1854), who earned the epithet 'Furniture man' to George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV (R. Smith, Vulliamy and the Kinnaird candelabra, Apollo, January 1997, pp. 30-34).
Messenger and Sons of Birmingham and London illustrated a related stand in their 1830s trade-card stating that they were 'Manufacturers of Chandeliers, Tripods and Lamps of every description in Bronze and Ormolu' (C. Gilbert and A. Wells-Cole, The Fashionable Fire Place, Temple Newsam, 1985, fig. 95). Such Roman tripods were intended to support colza-oil vase candelabra.