Hallmarks -- England; Plate -- Collectors and collecting; Sheffield plate
=The Candelabrum.=--Whatever may have been the varieties of the
hanging candelabrum in Dutch interiors, finely wrought brass and copper
with a variety of designs always pleasing and so attractive as to find
a ready duplication as a modern electric light candelabrum, we do not
find the table candelabrum at an early date in England. As days went
on it became massive, and had seven or eight lights. Old engravings
depict Jewish and other candelabra as standing on the ground, sometimes
of great height and with many lights, but for domestic use their
acceptance as table or sideboard lights came in the middle
eighteenth century, in Georgian days with great spread of mahogany and
massive furniture. They seem almost related to the Adam resuscitation
of classic candelabra on tripod feet. But most of the massive Sheffield
plated examples bear relationship to Hogarthian pre-Chippendale
mahogany, and solid sideboards groaning with silver, engirt with
monteiths and punch bowls and all the equipments of a period when
members of Parliament hiccupped their speeches in the House, and when
fox-hunting and port-drinking squires drank each other under the
table. The evolution of the candelabrum from its simple form with two
lights to its conclave of twelve is as interesting as the evolution
of the gate-leg table during a somewhat longer period. In regard to
practicability, as has been pointed out to the writer, some of the
later replicas overdo the number in the attempt to be ornate, and if
filled with candles and lighted they would burn each other. This is
an interesting fact as indicating that sometimes in his attempt to be
original the modern fabricator invents something that could never have
been used. For, after all, our ancestors, however handicapped they were
by want of illuminative mechanism, were never so foolish as to employ
candelabra that would cause guttering by one candle firing another on
account of its close proximity.
[Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED CANDELABRUM.
Branched with seven lights. A square base with ball feet. Fluted
decorations on column. Date 1820.
(_By courtesy of Walter H. Willson, Esq._)]
[Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED CANDELABRUM.
With five lights: on hexagonal base with claw feet. Nozzles urn-shaped,
richly decorated. Column with acanthus leaf and diaper ornamentation.
Date 1810.
(_By courtesy of Walter H. Willson, Esq._)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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