Images(9)

Chandelier

Date1691-1697

Marked by Daniel Garnier (active ca. 1691-1698)

OriginEngland, London

MediumSilver (probably sterling); Iron

DimensionsOH: 27"; OW: 33"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1938-42

DescriptionChandelier: circular silvered-iron suspension ring passing through silver fitting at top of iron suspension rod allowing chandelier to swing freely; rod extends full height of chandelier and supports the four cast silver sections comprising the shaft; first section of shaft consists of ball-shaped finial accommodating suspension ring; second section of shaft consists of three gadrooned parts of graduated diameters: the upper of spherical form with gadrooned upper half, the middle of urn form with gadrooned upper part and plain lower part with mid-band; third section consists of a cylinder with circular holes and slots for accommodating arms, a large spool-shaped section with gadrooning at top and at center, a broad gadrooned flattened-hemisphere, and a small spool-shaped section with mid-band; fourth section and pendent terminal consists of a flattened-ball with gadrooned upper half with ball below; interior of bottom section threaded fitting threaded end of rod; ten arms of circular section composed of reverse curves broken at intervals by bands of gadroons and volutid at inner end; post and tongue at inner edge of each arm fitting holes and slots in cylinder of shaft and secured internally by nuts and bolts; outer end of each arm supports circular saucer with dished center enclosed by molding and edged with gadroons on upper face and gadroons in rayed arrangement from center on underside; cylindrical socket with molded and gadrooned rim, mid-band, and gadrooned lower section with screw attachment through center of saucer to end of each arm.
Label TextDaniel Garnier fashioned this silver chandelier for King William III of England (1650–1702) sometime between 1691 and 1697. Excluding its iron hanging rod, the silver weighs approximately 721 troy ounces, or almost fifty pounds. The earliest mention of the chandelier appears in the 1721 inventory of royal silver, which lists it as “One 10 nozzelld Branch,” and places it “At St. James’s [Palace]/ In the Lodgings.” Six years later, it was recorded as being in the “the little drawing Room” of the palace.

Though no one knows for sure, the chandelier probably left the royal collections in September of 1808 when King George III agreed to dispose of silver deemed “neither available for service in its present form nor valuable from its antiquity or workmanship.” Selected objects were sold at their weight value to the royal goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. Instead of melting them down, they sold the silver to their leading clients.
Walter Sneyd (1752–1829) likely bought some of the royal silver from Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. He was in command of the Staffordshire Regiment at Windsor and lieutenant colonel of the King’s Bodyguard. George III served as godfather to several of his daughters. Sneyd owned both a town house in London and a country house named Keele Hall in Staffordshire. He probably purchased this chandelier as well as other royal silver to furnish those residences.

The chandelier is first noted as “1 Silver Chandelier” in the Sneyd papers in 1849; five years later it was recorded as “1 Chandelier 10 Arms.” It remained in the family until the American newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951) purchased it at the sale of the Sneyd heirlooms at a Christie, Manson & Woods auction in London in 1924. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation acquired the chandelier in 1938.

MarkingsMaker's mark "DG" in block letters with a crown over a fleur-de-lis with a pellet to either side above within a conforming reserve on the underside of the tongue on seven of the ten arms (within a shaft when assembled). Arms nos. 7, 8, and 10 unmarked.
ProvenanceAcquired from William Randolph Hearst; he purchased the chandelier at Christie's in the auction of the Sneyd family heirlooms June 24, 1924. It was sold as an unmarked Queen Anne chandelier with no indication of its earlier history.

The first mention of this piece in the Sneyd family papers in an "Inventory of Plate left at/Messer Garrard Co. 31 Canton St. London," dated June 16, 1849 (MS, Box 79, Manuscript Collection, Keele University; copy in folder). It is there referred to as "1 Silver Chandelier". Five years later in a "List of Plate/At/Keele Hall/April 1854" (MS, Box 79, Manuscript Collection, Keele University; copy in folder), it is referred to as "1 Chandelier 10 Arms".

In 1964, Mr. Charles C. Oman, then of the Victoria & Albert Museum, verified that this chandelier was one of the five listed in the 1721 inventory of royal plate, the only such surviving inventory from the eighteenth century. It is referred to in that document as "One 10 nozelld Branch...730.0.0." and credited as "At St. James's/In the Lodgings" (MS, Public Records Office, London, L.C. 5/114). Further, Mr. Oman discovered that the chandelier appears to have been sent annually to be boiled or cleaned. For example: "Sept. 18, 1723 Delivered to boyl and repair/One ten nozzell'd Branch wt. 730 Oz." (MS, Public Records Office, London, L.C. 9/44 f. 226). In 1727 shortly after George II came to the throne, there was a formal transfer of the plate. It is recorded for June 24, 1727 at St. James's: "Del'd back to Mr De Grave Housekeeper/A Silver Branch with ten Armes 730 oz." (MS, Public Records Office, London, L.C. 9/44 f. 288). There is a notation in that document that the chandelier was from the "little drawing Room". Mr. Oman concludes: "From the above it is clear that the chandelier had always been at St. James's and presumably always in 'the little drawing Room' which Oliver Miller tells me was on the side of the palace which overlooks the Mall." (Above information obtained in letter from Charles C. Oman to John M. Graham, dated March 24, 1964; copy in folder). The only other surviving chandelier of the five in the 1721 inventory is the twelve-branched example made by George Garthorne for William III, which still hangs at Hampton Court.

This chandelier is, as far as I know, the only early English silver chandelier in an American collection. An Irish silver chandelier of about 1742 is in the Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum.

Ex Coll. Royal Collection; Sneyd family; William Randolph Hearst.
Vendor: Parish-Watson & Co., Inc., New York

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