A highly important pair of George III ormolu three-light candelabra, designed by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart and supplied by Diederich Nicolaus Anderson, each candelabrum with a central foliate nozzle and beaded drip-pan supported by a spiral foliate branch above a foliate urn with Vitruvian-scroll rim and spiral-fluted neck, issuing two foliate branches with nozzles and drip-pans, on a spiral-fluted socle and rosette-guilloche rim, above three reeded and husked S-scroll supports with acanthus clasps forming a tripod on a gadrooned concave-sided triangular plinth.

This highly important pair of candelabra was supplied to the 1^st Earl Spencer at Spencer House for the Painted Room. The first complete ‘antique’ interior in Europe, these candelabra heralded the dawn of the Neoclassical style in England which would sweep the country and define taste for the next one hundred years. While this pair of candelabra are examples of the finest craftsmanship and design they are also symbols of one of the most important stylistic movements in British art and architecture.

James ‘Athenian’ Stuart

Stuart’s design for this pair of candelabra originated in his designs for other tripod-based candelabra and perfume burners for Sir Nathaniel Curzon at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire and the 2^nd Marquess of Rockingham at Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire. Two sketches by Stuart for the interior decoration of Kedleston, dated 1757-8, found amongst the manuscripts of the Adam brothers, either as Stuart’s originals or as copies made by them or their draughtsmen, contain illustrations of them.

Stuart was architect at Spencer House from 1758 and designed these candelabra for the chimneypiece in the Painted Room. An identical pair survive at Hagley Hall, Worcestershire, where he also was employed as interior designer. On his return from Greece in 1755, Stuart and his designs became highly fashionable, and amongst the five hundred subscribers to his book of designs The Antiquities of Athens was Lord Spencer. Responsible for pioneering Neoclassicism in England and proliferating highly popular designs in the Ancient Greek style, for which he gained his epithet ‘Athenian’, Stuart was one of the most important designers of the eighteenth century.

Diederich Nicolaus Anderson

Diederich Nicolaus Anderson (d. 1767) was one of the finest metalworkers of his generation, the leading purveyor of objects in ormolu and gilt-bronze before Matthew Boulton began his production at Soho, Birmingham in 1768. Of Dutch origin and active until his death in 1767, Anderson crafted primarily in the Rococo and Neoclassical styles and completed some of the most important commissions of the eighteenth century, amongst them those for the 1^st Duke of Northumberland at Syon House and the 4^th Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace.

In addition to their collaboration at Spencer House, Stuart and Anderson worked together at St. James’s Palace, London, Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, Hagley Hall, Worcestershire and Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire, supporting the attribution of the present candelabra to him. In 1761 at St. James’s Palace, Anderson supplied a new throne designed by Stuart to Queen Charlotte. His full name appears beneath the lid of a plate warmer at Kedleston made in 1760 to a design by Stuart. It was here and at Wentworth that he supplied the aforementioned perfume burners with the same tripod bases as those supporting the present candelabra. At Hagley, Anderson supplied candelabra identical to the present pair, now in Soho House, Birmingham.

The case for attributing the manufacture of the present pair of candelabra to Anderson rests not only on his relationship with Stuart, but also the exceptionally fine quality of their chasing and gilding, and the lack of other known metalworkers of the day able to produce such objects.