564 - Tall Candlestick with Pricket and Pierced Tracery Base, Neo-Gothic

Tall Candlestick with Pricket and Pierced Tracery Base, Neo-Gothic Brass, patinated. Tall candlestick in the Neo-Gothic style. Above three splayed feet with scrolled ends rises a steeply ascending base set all round with pierced tracery of ogee arches and quatrefoils above them; the upper band of the base surfaces carries a finely engraved diaper of lozenges. Above this a strong torus, then the lower of the two hexagonal knops, a compressed boss and the second knop of the same form; both knops are set off in a lighter tone and carry on each edge an applied lozenge boss with an engraved flower. The slender cylindrical shaft ends above in a further torus; above it the drip pan with a stepped, projecting rim and a pierced band of small arches on the underside. On the pan sits the iron pricket on which the candle is impaled. Shaft and base are braced by an iron tie rod whose nut lies exposed beneath the foot and is rusted. The surface with dark age patina, scattered remains of candle wax. In the base a vertical crack running from the upper rim through one field of tracery. In age-appropriate good condition. 51x19 cm (HxD), height measured including the pricket Candlesticks with a pricket instead of a socket are known as pricket candlesticks; the candle is impaled on the metal spike, which was more practical for hand-drawn candles of varying thickness than a fixed socket. The form dates from the Middle Ages and has survived in church use to this day. In the 19th century the Gothic Revival deliberately took up these forms again: pierced ogee arches, quatrefoils and three-footed bases transferred the language of the Gothic cathedral to altar and domestic furnishings.