Jim Peake
Head of Department
Lot 15
A very rare Venetian opalescent glass candlestick, circa 1700
29 September 2020, 10:30 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £7,562.50 inc. premium
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A very rare Venetian opalescent glass candlestick, circa 1700
The tall cylindrical nozzle moulded with twelve ribs and folded at the rim, applied with a trailed vermicular collar, set on a hollow wrythen-moulded inverted baluster stem between similarly moulded hollow cushion knops separated by collars, the high waisted double-ogee domed base moulded with fourteen ribs and with a folded footrim, 23.2cm high
Footnotes
Provenance
Lady 'Lili' Maria Elisabeth Augusta Cartwright (née von Sandizell)
Thence by descent to her son, William Cornwallis Cartwright, Aynhoe Park, Oxfordshire
Thence by family descent to the present owner
Two very similar opal glass candlesticks are in the Civici Musei di Arte e Storia in Brescia (accession nos. VT 176 and VT 177) illustrated by Paolo Zecchin, The Inventory of Matteo Priuli in the Year 1700, in Study Days on Venetian Glass (2014), p.49, fig.1. Zecchin states that two Candellieri di girasole (opal candlesticks) are listed in the inventory of Matteo Priuli's glass at his home in Padua in 1700, demonstrating that candlesticks of this type were being produced in opal glass prior to the 18th century.
A handful of candlesticks of similar form with distinctive wide domed feet, for stability, are known in clear glass. One from the Christopher Crabtree Collection was sold by Bonhams on 16 December 2009, lot 133, and is now in the Corning Museum of Glass (accession no. 2009.3.102). Another is in the Musée Ariana in Geneva (accession no. MF 4079), illustrated by Erwin Baumgartner, Reflets de Venise (2015), pp.190-3, no.88. An example with diamond-point engraved decoration is in the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (accession no. OGL-1966-0002), illustrated by Jet Pijzel-Dommisse and Titus Eliëns, Glinsterend Glas (2009), p.79, no.103 and another is in the Gewerbemuseum in Nuremberg, illustrated by Erich Egg, Die Glashütten zu Hall und Innsbruck (1962), fig.69. See also that from the Guépin Collection sold by Christie's on 5 June 1989, lot 29.
Two examples with floral lampwork stems in the Rosenborg Caste glass collection are of related form and are illustrated by Gudmund Boesen, Venetianske Glas på Rosenborg (1960), nos.25 and 89.
