Lot 576
  • 576

A Set of Four George III Silver Candlesticks, Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill, Birmingham, after a design by James Wyatt, 1776

Estimate
50,000 - 60,000 USD
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Description

  • fully marked on base rims and nozzles; loaded bases
  • Silver
  • height 12 1/8 in.
  • 30.7cm
on shaped square bases chased with entrelac bands centered by flowerheads, engraved with contemporary crest, the fluted baluster stems applied with leaves surmounted by conforming campana form sconces, the removable nozzles chased with radiating flutes and with beaded rim

Literature

Hartop, Christopher, The Classical Ideal, English Silver, 1760-1840, 2010, pgs 38-39.

Catalogue Note

These sticks belong to a group of elegant designs by James Wyatt, used and adapted by Boulton & Fothergill in both silver and silver plate during the mid 1770s, after the establishment of the Sheffield Assay office in 1773.  Christopher Hartop explores this group at length, and reproduces the few surviving Wyatt drawings, plus the more numerous variants done for Sheffield Plate catalogues, in the exhibition catalogue from Koopman Rare Art cited above.