DESIGNED BY JAMES 'ATHENIAN' STUART, CIRCA 1760-65, ATTRIBUTED TO DIEDERICH NICOLAUS ANDERSON, THE BRANCHES LATER AND AFTER A DESIGN BY BENJAMIN LEWIS VULLIAMY

This candelabrum was designed by the celebrated architect James 'Athenian' Stuart (1713-1788), and reflects the nascent appetite in England for neoclassical ornament and is emblematic of Stuart's own fascination with the furniture and architecture of ancient Greece. Combining a number of recognisably classical motifs, the underside of the tazza bears the face of the faun Pan while the antique-fluted pilasters of the tripod are headed by stately-dressed nymphs wearing necklaces each suspending a medallion representing the three ages of man, standing on Dyonisiac lion's paws. The design of the candelabrum is based on a sketch Stuart made of a tripod that once stood on the roof of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, now preserved amongst the Adam manuscripts in Sir John Soane's Museum (Adam Mss. Vol. 25, nos. 89, 90, 91).

Two drawings for tripods of this form - one with branches and one with a pierced lid for perfume - attributed to the Adam brothers, and also preserved amongst their manuscripts at Sir John Soane's Museum, were inscribed 'Tripod for Sir Nathaniel Curzon Bart.', the owner of Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, and are either the work of Stuart or copies of his work (N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, rev. ed., London, 2002, pp. 72-4, pls. 23 & 24). A perfume-burner/candelabrum combining these designs is preserved at Kedleston (ibid, p. 73, pls. 25-7; J. Cornforth, 'A splendid unity of arts', Country Life, June 13, 1996, p. 128), and the Adams' designs for the dining room at Kedleston, which also depict the tripod, are dated 1762, indicating that it was made before that date. The fact that the Hewat-Jaboor candelabrum has a later upper lid section and branches, and filled holes between the uprights, suggests it originally followed the same or a very similar design, although the uprights of the present example have been patinated rather than gilded as opposed to those of the Kedleston tripod.

Further examples of tripods with minor variations to the design include the pair of candelabra now at Althorp, Northamptonshire, which were originally supplied to John Spencer, later 1st Earl Spencer (1734-83) for the Painted Room at Spencer House, London, where Stuart was commissioned between 1758-65 to design the first floor interiors, following the departure of John Vardy who had been responsible for the ground floor. The Spencer candelabra have three branches issuing from between each of the female heads as opposed to one, but are otherwise identical. Both Lord Spencer and Lord Scarsdale (of Kedleston) were early subscribers to Stuart and Nicholas Revett's The Antiquities of Athens, first published in 1762. A further example in ormolu and now lacking branches was formerly at Wentworth Woodhouse and is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (inv. no. M.46:1, 2-1948); and a patinated-bronze perfume burner was sold 'Out of the Ordinary The Discerning and Individual Taste of Christopher Gibbs and Harris Lindsay', Christie's, London, May 10, 2006, lot 290 (£31,500, including premium).

The similarities between the design and craftsmanship of the models at Kedleston, Althorp and that made for Wentworth Woodhouse indicate a single source for all four - and whilst the model has in the past been attributed to Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill, Sir Nicholas Goodison believed this to be unlikely. Boulton and Fothergill's workshop was not capable of producing gilt ornaments of such size and quality in the early 1760s, by which time we can be sure the Kedleston tripod was made, and as such it is likely instead that they were made by Diederich Nicolaus Anderson, who exhibited 'a tripod, from an original design by Mr Stuart' in 1761 (Goodison, op. cit., pp. 75 & 376, fn. 45).

The design for the branches of this candelabrum, which are later in date and not original, is closely related to the work of Benjamin Vulliamy (d. 1821), specifically to the celebrated design for ormolu and black slate candelabra with the same acanthus 'cup', foliate-wrapped serpentine branches and acanthus-cast drip-pans. Examples of these candelabra include one sold by the late Humphrey Whitbread, Esq., Christie's, London, 5 April 2001, lot 406 as well as a set of four currently preserved in Harewood House, Yorkshire.