Candlestand

1750-1825

and modern

Measurements

47-3/8 in x 25-1/2 in x 16 in

Materials

Iron, brass, copper (rivets)

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation, bequest of H. Rodney Sharp

Accession Number

1968.815

Provenance

Ex coll. H. Rodney Sharp

Comments

Iron candlestands with brass fittings are among the more enigmatic of American decorative arts.  In a 1977 article, authors Charles F. Montgomery and Gerald W.R. Ward identified the form as common to New England but largely absent elsewhere, including anywhere in Europe.  See "Iron Candlestands:  Made Where, When, and by Whom?," Antiques (August 1977), p. 282.  Although occasionally recorded in early estate inventories, examples with known makers and dates are exceedingly rare.  Great interest in them among collectors has also spawned reproductions and suspicious objects.  

This candlestand is of an unusual form, having a single adjustable arm for a single candle socket, instead of the common crossarm supporting two candle sockets.  In addition, the decoration on it is ample, almost too much.  The brass finial at the top of the iron rod is large and fastened with straddling sides riveted through the flattened rod.  The brass ferrule sits above a collar marking the top of the lower iron rod.  Most unusual is the swelled section of that lower piece, with iron collars above and below it.  A six-lobed or scalloped plate separates the bottom-most collar from the top of the three legs.  Also noteworthy, the iron of the upper portion of the rod is smoothly finished whereas the lower, including the legs, has a rougher texture.  The legs on this stand are peened in place.  Each leg has a filled hole visible on the underside of the knee.  The brass candle pans with straight sides that angle outward have a rolled top edge