Cleveland Museum of Art

Pair of Candle Stands (torchères)

Thomas Chippendale

Date

c. 1773

Medium

Gilt-wood, gesso

Culture

England

Department

Decorative Art and Design

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

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.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.