Candlestick, c. 1547/1559

Marks and Labels

label on underside: "Sir Anthony Rothschild No. 1"; written on underside: 18 [or possibly 81]

Provenance

Edmé-Unité Jacquot-Préaux, Paris; (sale, Paris, 9-11 January 1850, no. 188,[1] sold for 4900 francs); Sir Anthony Rothschild, Bart. [d. 1876], London; by inheritance to his nephew, Alfred Charles de Rothschild [1842-1918], London, and Halton House, near Wendover, Buckinghamshire; bequeathed to his illegitimate daughter, Almina Victoria, Countess of Carnarvon [d. 1969], Highclere Castle, Hampshire; sold February 1923 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[2] purchased June 1923 by Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from the Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, after purchase by funds of the Estate; gift 1942 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1850

Works of Ancient and Mediaeval Art, Society of Arts, London, 1850, (Catalogue of Works of Ancient and Mediaeval Art Exhibited at the House of the Society of Arts), no. 600, 20.

1857

Art Treasures of the United Kingdom: Museum of Ornamental Art, Art Treasures Palace, Manchester, 1857, not in catalogue.

1862

Special Exhibition of Works of Art of the Mediaeval, Renaissance, and More Recent Periods on Loan at the South Kensington Museum, June, 1862, South Kensington Museum, London, 1862, no. 1203.

Technical Summary

The white body is impressed with decoration in a clay that shows through the glaze as brown verging on black. The candlestick is entirely covered in a somewhat crackled transparent glaze which has a green cast where it is pooled inside the recess for the candle. The design is heightened with touches of green, orange-brown, purple-brown, and blue-black. The candlestick is broken and repaired above the central swelling ridge with floriated bosses; otherwise it is virtually intact, with only minor repairs. Some cracking of the applied ornament has occurred in the kiln. There is a loose fragment rattling inside the stem.

Bibliography

1838

Du Sommerard, Alexandre and Edmond. Les arts au moyen age. 5 vols. Paris, 1838-1846: 5:241; album 7e série, chap. 16, pl. 34.

1844

Brongniart, Alexandre. Traité des arts céramiques. Paris, 1844: 175.

1847

Labarte, Jules. Description des objets d'art qui composent la collection Debruge Duménil precedé d'une introduction historique. Paris, 1847: 306.

1850

Archaeological Journal 7 (1850): repro. facing 209.

1850

Catalogue of Works of Ancient and Mediaeval Art Exhibited at the House of the Society of Arts. Exh. cat. Society of Arts, London, 1850: no. 600, 20.

1850

Marryat, Joseph. Collections towards a History of Pottery and Porcelain. London, 1850: 5354, fig. 28; also 2d ed., London, 1857: 108-109, fig. 57.

1851

Archaeological Journal 8 (1851): repro. facing 119.

1851

De la Motte, Philip. Choice Examples of Art Workmanship Selected from the Exhibition of Ancient and Mediaeval Art at the Society of Arts. London, 1851: 11, repro.

1857

Robinson, John Charles. "Ceramic Art." In Art Treasures of the United Kingdom from the Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester. Edited by J. B. Waring. London, 1857: pl. 9.

1860

Clément de Ris, Louis. "Les faïences de Henri II." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 1st ser. 5 (1860): 46-47, no. 1, repro.

1860

Tainturier, Alfred. Notice sur les faïences du XVI siècle dites de Henri II. Paris, 1860: 5, 15, no. 1.

1861

Delange/Delange 1861, pl. 19.

1861

Robinson, John Charles. Notices of the Principal Works of Art in the Collection of Hollingworth Magniac, Esq. of Colworth. London, 1861: 75, no. 4.

1862

South Kensington 1862, no. 1203.

1864

Fillon, Benjamin. L'art de terre chez les Poitevins. Niort, 1864: 92, no. 18.

1868

King, A.C. Henri Deux Ware: Photographs of twenty examples of this ware chiefly in English collections, with an introductory notice. London (The Arundel Society), 1868: 8, no. 9.

1891

Bonnaffé, Edmond. "Faïences de Saint-Porchaire dites de Henri II." In La collection Spitzer: Antiquité, moyen âge, renaissance. 6 vols. Paris, 1890-1892: 2:128.

1935

Inventory of the Objects d'Art at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, The Estate of the Late P.A.B. Widener. Philadelphia, 1935: 69, as c. 1560.

1942

Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 14, as Henri II Ware, Candlestick with masks and cupids.

1975

Jestaz 1975, 396, n. 31.

1983

Wilson, Carolyn C. Renaissance Small Bronze Sculpture and Associated Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1983: 204, no. 34, as c. 1555.

1987

Schnitzer, Barbara K. "The Sixteenth-Century French Ceramic Ware Called Saint-Porchaire." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1987: 204, no. 67, 207, pl. 32.

1993

Distelberger, Rudolf, Alison Luchs, Philippe Verdier, and Timonthy H. Wilson. Western Decorative Arts, Part I: Medieval, Renaissance, and Historicizing Styles including Metalwork, Enamels, and Ceramics. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1993: 257-263, color repro. 258.

1996

Barbour, Daphne and Sturman, Shelley. "Introduction." Studies in the History of Art 52 (1996): 12, repro. no. 3.

1996

Sturman, Shelley and Barbour, Daphne. "'Saint-Porchaire' Ceramic Bodies." Studies in the History of Art 52 (1996): 79, 87, repro. 78.

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