1095 - Five-light candelabrum, 900 silver, eight sculptural dolphins, torch-form stem, Empire style

Five-light candelabrum, 900 silver, eight sculptural dolphins, torch-form stem, Empire style 900 silver, five-light candelabrum in the Empire style, also called girandole or branched candlestick, marked on the base “GS” in a hexagon and “900”, round, multiply stepped base with radially gadrooned dome and a continuous palmette frieze on the rim, on the dome four sculptural dolphins with scaled bodies, their heads resting outward, their upturned tails together forming the socket of the stem, torch-shaped, upward-widening fluted stem with a collar and pendant leaf wreath, above it four dolphins arranged crosswise with open mouths, scaled bodies and wing-like spread fins, from each of which a branch issues, beginning as a scaled dolphin tail and continuing as a fluted C-scroll with leaf collar, four flat, stepped drip pans with palmette frieze and vase-shaped nozzles with a bossed tongue frieze, trumpet-shaped above with engraved palmette frieze, at the centre on a vase-shaped knop a baluster stem with a raised fifth nozzle and drip pan, very good condition for its age, two nuts missing on the base, H. 46.5 cm, W. 1940 g. 360-degree photo on our website. The word candelabrum, from the French candélabre and ultimately the Latin candelabrum, “candlestick”, denotes a multi-branched, column-like stand for candles. In antiquity the dolphin was the companion and attribute of the sea deities Poseidon and Aphrodite as well as of Apollo and was regarded as the rescuer of shipwrecked sailors; in the Roman circus, dedicated columns carried marble dolphins. The Empire style, the French expression of Neoclassicism in the Napoleonic era, deliberately drew on Roman, Greek and Egyptian forms through the court architects Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine and their “Recueil de décorations intérieures”; its ornamental vocabulary includes palmette friezes, gadroons and foliage as well as the scaled dolphin, which appears frequently on candelabra, furniture and sconces. The torch-shaped, fluted stem follows the same antique-inspired canon of forms.