Pair of Candle Stands (torchères) (c. 1773): Art, History and Details

Pair of Candle Stands (torchères) (c. 1773) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Thomas Chippendale (British, 1718–1779).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

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.

Object facts

• Title: Pair of Candle Stands (torchères)
• Date: c. 1773
• Creator attribution: Thomas Chippendale (British, 1718–1779)
• Culture: England
• Type: Furniture and woodwork
• Technique: Gilt-wood, gesso
• Dimensions: Each: 154 x 56 x 51 cm (60 5/8 x 22 1/16 x 20 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 2018.203

A detail from the museum

Candle stands usually held silver or crystal candelabra that were lit for evening entertainment.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Tipping. H. Avray. "Brockett Hall-III: The Seat of Sir Charles Nall-Cain." Country Life 58, no. 1489 (July 18, 1925) 96-103.
• Tipping, H. Avray. English Homes, Period VI - Volume 1, Late Georgian, 1760-1820. London: Offices of Country Life, 1926.
• Gilbert, Christopher. The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale. London: Studio Vista, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.