A Pair of Regency Giltwood Torcheres, Circa 1815

James A. Williams, Mercer House, Savannah, Georgia
Sotheby's New York, 20 October 2000, lot 344

James Arthur Williams (1930-1990) was a prominent antiques dealer who played a leading role in conservation efforts in the historic Southern city of Savannah during the second half of the 20th century. In 1969 he acquired Mercer House, a mansion built in 1860 for the Confederate General Hugh Mercer, though never actually lived in by him, and restored it as a setting for his collection of English furniture and pictures. This pair of torcheres stood in the ground floor Music Room. The house was also the setting of a notorious 1981 shooting and four subsequent trials that formed the basis of the 1994 book and 1997 film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Today the property is maintained as a museum.