Homes & Antiques

LET THERE BE LIGHT – AND TASTE

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As early as 1773, Wedgwood and Bentley introduced catalogues to market their ornamental wares. Divided into sections based on use or material, they o ered advice on appropriat­e places for display. The section on lamps noted: ‘ The Tripod Lamps with several Lights, are highly enriched, and will be suitable Ornaments for the finest Apartments’. Of these tripod lamps, shape number 180, now known as the ‘Michelange­lo’ lamp, was extremely popular.

The engine-turned fluted bowl of the ‘Michelange­lo’ lamp, inspired by Hellenisti­c bronze hanging oil lamps, was filled with costly spermaceti (whale oil), replaced from the 1780s by colza (vegetable) oil. When lit, the wicks provided illuminati­on through capillary action.

The bowl is supported on three male slaves, after an engraving entitled Persians and Caryatides in Sir William Chambers’ A Treatise on Civil Architectu­re (1759), copied from an altar garniture erroneousl­y attributed to Michelange­lo, but now identified as having been made c1581–2 by Antonio Gentili da Faenza.

This lamp, one of a pair at Saltram House, Devon, was acquired shortly before 6th March 1772, when the Hon Theresa Parker wrote to her elder brother: ‘We have just bought a beautiful Lamp of the Black Sta ordshire ware’.

In the same month, the Parkers cancelled an order for four of Matthew Boulton’s ‘Persian’ candle vases, purchasing instead four of his six-branch Derbyshire fluorspar and ormolu King’s Vase Candelabra for £126 7s. In April, Mrs Parker wrote to her younger brother: ‘ I was at the Exhibition of Or Moulu, this week, there are some new things, but nothing that I wish’d much to have… I think upon the whole Wedgewood beats them in taste but perhaps it may be owing to his material, admitting to be better executed, particular­ly with respect to Figures’.

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