Supplied to Robert Berkeley (1764-1845) for Spetchley Park, Worcestershire
Literature
Listed in 1893 Spetchley Inventory: ‘A pair [...] carved black and gilt stands’ on the Grand Staircase
A pair of Regency period parcel-gilt and simulated bronze torchères, the gadrooned, circular dish tops above fluted and acanthus-carved baluster stems headed with lions’ masks and rosettes, raised on moulded plinths.
These torchères were probably commissioned by Berkeley after his return from his Grand Tour in 1818 when he looked to furnish his Palladian mansion, recently completed in 1811, in the latest style.
The torchères are a romantic derivative of antique Roman forms and closely relate to a number of designs by the most successful Regency designers. The bronzed surface and gilt detail are typical of work by George Smith as illustrated by hand-coloured plates in his 1808 A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration and in Edward Joy, Pictorial Dictionary of British 19th Century Design (Woodbridge: 1977), p. 553.
A pair of boldly-carved, ebonised and parcel-gilt ‘stands’, after a design by Thomas Hope, the great Regency designer and patron, that relate closely to the present pair is illustrated in David Watkin and Philip Hewat-Jaboor’s Thomas Hope: Regency Designer (London: 2008), p. 414.
The present torchères also bear close stylistic resemblance to works by Robert Oakley, namely a tripod table made by him for Sir William Forbes Bt. (1773-1828) at Fettercairn House. Like the torchères it is conceived in a highly stylised neoclassical form with rising leaf decoration and features a similarly ‘bronzed’ and parcel-gilt surface, reflecting the fashion at this time when designers and patrons alike delighted in unusual paint techniques and textures.