After a design by William Chambers, Murshidabad, circa 1785.
Provenance:
By repute Warren Hastings (1732-1818), Daylesford,
Oxfordshire; [ … ]; William Redford, London;
Jon Gerstenfeld, Washington, U S A
J. B. Hawkins Antiques
Exhibited:
CINOA Exhibition, Richmond, Virginia, 1983
Literature:
E. Lennox-Boyd, ed., Masterpieces of English
Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection, London, 1998, cat. no. 60, col. pl. 106
Published in the 3rd edition of his Treatise on the Decorative Parts of Civil Architecture of 1791, the attribution of the design for these candlesticks has long been securely give to Sir William `Chambers 1726-96), architect to George III.
Several examples of the model attributed to Diederich Nicolaus Anderson appear in ormolu. After Anderson’s death in 1757, it seems likely that Chambers passed the design to Josiah Wedgwood, who produced this model in Basaltware.
In his essay on the ivory pieces in the Gerstenfeld collection, Amin Jaffer suggests that, while it is not impossible that these ivory examples were produced from a model in another medium, the inclusion of the medallion on the chain around the neck of the griffin does not appear on ceramic examples, while the drip-pans and socket differ from ormolu comparables, perhaps indicating that the present examples were produced from the detailed drawings.