Images(10)

Candlestick, one from a set of four

Date1761-1762

Marked by John Robinson II (fl. ca. 1738 - 1773)

OriginEngland, London

MediumSilver (Sterling)

DimensionsOH: 12 7/8"; OW: (base) 5 3/16"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1945-5,1

DescriptionCandlestick, one of four. Removable nozzle of square plan with applied leaf-ornamented reeded edge and dished center with bezel fitting within socket of stem; cast openwork socket of Corinthian capital form on tall stop-fluted columnar stem; stem supported on six-step stylobate base of square plan with upper step ornamented with band of bell flowers and upper face of lower step ornamented with leaf and reeded band similar to rim of nozzle

Label TextThis standard type of columnar candlestick, usually in the Corinthian order, was fully developed by the late 1750s. An early set of four such candlesticks of 1756/57 by Thomas Gilpin of London are at Althorp House. Candlesticks of this type are often considered solely a function of the neoclassical movement, and, indeed, their sheer quantity after 1760 and their obvious formal derivation have made them emblematic of the movement. There are, however, earlier eighteenth-century columnar candlesticks with a pretention towards architectural correctness, which are expressions of the classical strain in Palladian taste, such as the pair of 1755/56 by John Holland (CWF accession 1936-443), and a set of four in the Ionic order with stepped square bases of 1745/46 by Paul de Lamerie. Further, one encounters columnar candlesticks from the 1740s and 1750s with their stems twisted in a baroque manner and supported on rococo bases. The presence of these earlier candlesticks as prototypical material, the standard renderings of the orders in many eighteenth-century design books, and the obvious and appropriate choice of such models, help explain the early incidence of fully developed columnar candlesticks in silver in the neoclassical style.

A pair of similar candlesticks in the Corinthian order from a set of at least four with a history of ownership in the Byrd family of Virginia has survived. Probably made by Ebenezer Coker of London in 1765/66 and engraved with the Byrd family crest, they were originally owned by William Byrd III (1728-1777) of Westover, Charles City County, and his wife, Mary Willing Byrd (1740-1814). William McCaa of Norfolk advertised for sale in the Virginia Gazette for January 18, 1770, among other silver, "Two pair of neat silver candlesticks, with fluted Corinthian pillars and capitals, &c. (65 ounces and a half)" and "A pair of fluted silver tea candlesticks with pillars and capitals to match the large (about 11 ounces and a half )." These candlesticks testify to the use of silver of neoclassical design in Virginia before the Revolution.

This form of candlestick strongly appealed to the classical sensitivities of Thomas Jefferson. After his house in Paris was robbed in 1789, he wrote to John Trumbull in London: "One article they took obliges me to trouble you. This was my candlesticks, all of which I lost. I have searched every shop in Paris and cannot find a tolerable pattern: therefore I will beg the favor of you to send me 4. pair plated from London. Mine were plated and came from there, and I am sure the pattern is common there. It was a fluted Corinthian column, with the capital of it's order, and the bottom of the candlestick was of the form in the margin. I recollect to have once seen the undermost form, which I thought very handsome. Mine were about 12. Inches high. I must trouble you therefore to find one of these patterns for me, and indeed I think no form is so handsome as that of the column." (Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 19 vols. to date [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950], 15:335.) Trumbull acquired these forJefferson, who used them in Paris and brought them back with him to Monticello. Unfortunately, their present location is not known.
InscribedUnidientifed armorial crest engraved on each nozzle and base: a pair of outstretched upright wings enclosing a shell charged with a cross on a torse
MarkingsMarked in relief on each interior edge of base: 1) sponsor's mark "IR" in script with sunburst above within a conforming reserve for John Robinson II [Grimwade 1990, # 1630]; 2) lion passant; 3) leopard's head crowned; and 4) date letter a gothich "F" for 1761-1762

Marked in relief on bezel of nozzle: 1) sponsor's mark "IR" in script with sunburst above within a conforming reserve for John Robinson II [Grimwade 1990, # 1630]; and 2) lion passant

ProvenanceEx Coll: Henry Philip Strause,Richmond,Virginia
Vendor: Thalhimer Brothers, Richmond