CANDELABRA, OR LAMP STANDS.[ToList]
One of those elegant table lamps, by the praise of which the present discussion was introduced, is represented in the accompanying plate. Including the stand it is three feet high. On a rectangular plinth rises a rectangular pillar, crowned by a capricious capital. On the front of the pillar is a mask of a Bacchante, with fine features and long flowing hair; and on the opposite side, the head of a bull, with the Greek word Bucranion. From the extreme points of the abacus, four ornamental branches, beautifully chased, project; the lamps which now hang from them, though ancient, also, are not those which belong to the stand, and were not found with it. They are nearly alike in figure, but differ in size. Three of them are ornamented with various animals, the fourth is plain. One of them has each of its ends wrought into the form of a shell. Above are two eagles in high relief, with the thunderbolt of Jupiter in their talons. Another has two bulls' heads, a third two elephants' heads projecting from the sides. The latter is suspended by two dolphins, instead of the chains generally in use, whose tails are united, and attached to a small ball and ring. The pillar is not placed in the center, but at one end of the plinth, which is the case in almost every lamp of this description yet found. The space thus obtained may have served as a stand for the oil vase used in trimming the lamps. The plinth is beautifully damasked, or inlaid, in imitation of a vine, the leaves of which are of silver, the stem and fruit of bright brass. On one side is an altar with wood and fire upon it; on the other a Bacchus, naked, with his thick hair plaited and bound with ivy. He rides a tiger, and has his left hand in the attitude of holding reins, which time probably has destroyed; with the right he raises a drinking-horn. The workmanship of this lamp is exquisitely delicate in all its parts.
Before we quit this subject we have still one candelabrum to notice, which for simplicity of design and delicacy of execution is hardly to be surpassed by any in the Neapolitan collection. The stem is formed of a liliaceous plant, divided into two branches, each of which supports a flat disc, which may represent the flower, upon which a lamp was placed. At the base is a mass of bronze which gives stability to the whole, upon which a Silenus is seated, earnestly engaged in trying to pour wine from a skin which he holds in his left hand into a cup in his right. In this figure all the distinctive marks of the companion and tutor of Bacchus are expressed with great skill; the pointed ears, the goat's tail, the shaggy skin, the flat nose, and the ample rotundity of body, leave no doubt on our minds as to the person intended to be represented. The head, especially, is admirable, both in respect of workmanship and expression.
Amongst Greek domestic utensils we also count articles made of basket-work, which frequently occur in antique pictures. The kalathos, the basket for keeping wool (used for weaving and embroidering), and also flowers and fruit, is frequently met with in vase paintings illustrating the life of Greek women. As early as Homer's time baskets, probably round or oval, were used at meals, to keep bread and pastry in. They had a low rim and handles. The kaneon was also used at offerings, where it is filled with pomegranates, holly boughs and ribbons. At the Panathenaia noble Athenian maidens carried such baskets, filled with holy cakes, incense, and knives on their heads. These graceful figures were a favorite subject of antique sculpture. Both Polyklete and Skopas had done a celebrated kanephore—the former in bronze, the latter in marble. There was also a flat basket, chiefly used for carrying fish, similar to that used at the present day by fishermen in the south. Other baskets used by peasants appear frequently in antique pictures, in the original carried by a peasant on a stick over his shoulder, together with another basket of the same pear-like shape, taken from a bas-relief representing a vintage, in which the former appears filled with grapes, while the latter is being filled with must by a boy. This proves, at the same time, the knowledge amongst the Greeks of the art of making the basket-work dense enough to hold fluids. The same fact is shown by a passage in Homer, in which Polyphemos lets the milk coagulate to cheese in baskets, which cheese was afterwards placed on a hurdle through which the whey trickled slowly. Of plaited rushes, or twigs, consisted also a peculiar kind of net, a specimen of which is seen on the reverse of a medal coined under the Emperor Macrinus, as the emblem of the maritime city of Byzantium.
To light and heat the room, in Homer's time, fire-baskets, or fire-basins were used, standing on high poles, and fed with dry logs of wood or splinters. The cinders were, at intervals, removed by serving-maids, and the flames replenished. Such fire-baskets on poles are still used by night-travelers in Southern Russia, and at nightly ceremonies in India. The use of pine-torches is of equal antiquity. They consisted of long, thin sticks of pine-wood, tied together with bark, rushes or papyrus. The bark of the vine was also used for torches, called lophis. The golden statues on pedestals, in the hall of Alkinoos, undoubtedly held such torches in their hands. In vase paintings we also see a different form of the torch, carried chiefly by Demeter and Persephone, which consists of two pieces of wood fastened crosswise to a staff. An imitation of this wooden torch was undoubtedly the torch-case made of clay or metal in the shape of a salpinx. Its surface was either smooth or formed in imitation of the bundles of sticks and the bark of the wooden torch, the inside being filled with resinous substances.
