Pair of Candle Stands (torchères)

c. 1773

Pair of Candle Stands (torchères), c. 1773. Thomas Chippendale (British, 1718–1779). Gilt-wood, gesso; each: 154 x 56 x 51 cm (60 5/8 x 22 1/16 x 20 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 2018.203 This pair of gilded candle stands was made by Thomas Chippendale, the most renowned cabinetmaker in eighteenth-century London, for the grand drawing room of Brocket Hall, a large country house in Hertfordshire, England. With finely carved acanthus leaves, swags, fluting, and oval masks depicting the Roman goddess Diana, these candle stands exhibit Chippendale’s masterful understanding of neoclassical proportion, scale, and ornament. His landmark book of furniture designs, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (first published in 1754), was highly admired as a source of inspiration by cabinetmakers and architects around England as well as in Europe and America. Candle stands usually held silver or crystal candelabra that were lit for evening entertainment.