Style Neo-Renaissance / Ref.16135

Pair of wrought iron lighting candelabra with openwork shafts, in the Renaissance taste

Pair of tall wrought iron lighting candelabra, of entirely openwork structure raised on three feet, standing over 3.30 m high.

Each mast rises as a shaft of square section formed of four corner uprights that draw together and apart in turn to describe, from bottom to top, a succession of openwork registers. The base rests on three scrolled cabriole feet, joined by an openwork quadrangular block from which spring paired scrolls. Reinforced with twisted rods, the shaft breaks at mid-height on a worked knot where the uprights open into symmetrical scrolls arranged in a basket, before resuming their course and closing at the top on an openwork baluster-shaped panel, framed by crosiers and foliate scrolls. The crown is girdled by a circular ring carried on scrolled brackets, set with applied florets, on which rests a broad copper cap with an edge cut in saw-teeth, forming a protective hood above the light source.

The work is that of the art metalwork of the second half of the 19th century, drawing on the repertoire of the Renaissance and of old wrought iron brought back into favour under the Second Empire. The hot assembly with applied collars and ties, the twisted rods, the split scrolls roughed out with the hammer, all belong to execution at the forge rather than to industrial assembly. The copper cap, shaped and repoussé, crowned the light source, gas or oil according to the installation, protecting the flame while carrying off the fumes.

Such candelabra stood on either side of a flight of steps, an entrance gate or a driveway, where their height and openwork silhouette provided both lighting and ornament.