Tuesday 31 March 2015

Tuesday.



Found meself wondering, over the last few days, why the place has such a hot house feeling to it, and realised it is because of the flowers given by our youngsters to Ann to help celebrate last week's birthday. They look , and smell, wonderful; and appear to be lasting well.

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Once again, I must stress that the item shown in the two photographs below is not, strictly speaking, a mystery object;  but it might be interesting to try and decide when it was  made, and where. This is not quite as simple as you might think. Even the 'experts' have been discussing the when and where of them for years now, so if you'd all contribute your two penn'orth, it would be interesting.


The picure below shows how the two parts of the item are joined together, i.e. by a very coarse threaded, and somewhat tapered screw.  So fire away chaps (and chapesses) and lets see what light (tee hee) you can throw on the subject.


5 comments:

Crowbard said...

I can't hold a candle to you and Rog on this one Mike. Must rush of to the Musée de Chandlerie and quiz the staff... to see if they can give me a glimmer of hope.

Crowbard said...

I have mused and now believe this to be an early C.18th Spanish brass candlestick having an octagonal base with a domed and dished circular central drip-well, a single knopped stem and a cylindrical socket with a single ejection aperture. Wild guess at date, 1717 and cast by Alphonso di Compostella on a Wednesday afternoon.

Roger said...

Portable travelling candlestick - 1795.

Whilst Sr Crowbard is waxing lyrical I think it's his candle schtick.

I'm up in the frozen North where these are still in use.

Crowbard said...

I'm impressed by the Yiddish vernacular Rog, you're right, it does not appear to be a very large candlestick; but I must protest my innocence of ownership or even previous acquaintance with the mysterious object. My observations came only from the visual evidence supplied in the photos.
Whilst being lit to bed by a candle in our childhood we had stoved-enamel chambersticks, brass being considered rather above our station at the time.

Unknown said...

There has been, in the past a good deal of argument about the origins of this type of candlestick. In the past they were considered direct descendants of the 'Heemskerk' type of Dutch candlesticks; but when the book on base metal candlesticks by Michaelis was published in 1978 he included a very similar candlestick to this one (see figure 143 in Michaelis's book) he ascribed it to the 'latin group' of candlesticks made in Spain or Portugal. I think that the answer lies in the fact that from 1581 to 1714 the Spanish occupied the Low Countries, and there was a great cross influence between them.

The 'mystery object' was, in my opinion, made in Spain/Holland in around the year 1650.