III
CANDELABRA AND CANDLESTICKS
EARLY TYPES
THE ADAM STYLE AND ITS PROMULGATION TO THE CONTINENT
THE CANDELABRUM
THE VARIETIES OF THE SPIRAL FORM
THE TRI-FORM CANDELABRUM
THE CHAMBER CANDLESTICK
THE EVOLUTION OF THE TABLE CANDLESTICK
CHAPTER III
CANDELABRA AND CANDLESTICKS
Early types—The Adam style and its promulgation to the Continent—The candelabrum—The varieties of the spiral form—The tri-form candelabrum—The chamber candlestick—The evolution of the table candlestick.
In commenting upon early types of Sheffield plated candlesticks a good deal of past history has to go by the board. One does not need to discuss pricket candlesticks of ecclesiastical form. Unfortunately the exquisite Stuart examples, the symmetrically ideal forms of the Charles I period, so rarely found, and the finely balanced types of the Charles II, James II and the William period pass—as they were never duplicated by Sheffield.
Sheffield commences with George II and Sheffield ended with George III. Happily the banalities of the early-Victoria era never encompassed her craftsmen. Therefore, the early types of candlestick belong to the days of George II. They belong to the days when Boulsover looked to Joseph Hancock, the master cutler, for inspiration, and Joseph Hancock the cutler of Sheffield set out on a true path. A certain modernity was in the air. The year 1751 had only 282 days, and the year 1752 only 355. The calendar was in process of reform. Joseph Hancock's types of the early days (we are speaking of 1750 to 1765) must have been the ordinary types made by the great silversmiths, though it may be imagined, as though in leading strings, Sheffield gently pursued her way with experimental copying.
To come to technique there were the edges of the silver and copper plate, an ugly witness of inferiority. These must be hidden somehow by godrooned edges, of solid silver maybe, rather than show the poverty of the rolled plate. If they were cast then there were the seams to screen from common observation. To this day the seams denote the genuineness of the old plate. Dies came into being. Portions were cast, ornaments were soldered together and attached to the article. At first there was always the factor determinable enough by close inspection that the silver was only on one side of the copper. The interior of vessels was copper, which was tinned. In candlesticks this was not a very formidable obstacle to successful imitation, as the nozzles could be French plated and otherwise concealed. The bottom could be plugged with a mahogany post and filled with solder, could be covered with shellac at the base and have a fine baize screen from all obtrusive gazers. But Sheffield soon got above and beyond any of these artifices.
