AFA Winter 2019

Winter 110 www.afamag.com |  www.incollect.com WINTERTHUR PRIMER W ithin any collection or antiques saleroom, suspended chandeliers a re uniformly difficult to inspect or maintain without risking a stiff neck or ladder ascent. As a result, they tend to hang around (pun intended), even if a room’s décor is updated. Alterations such as replacing a broken element or adding electrical sockets and wires inevitably occur over time, so a close visual inspection is warranted before acquiring an antique fixture. Remarkably, early chandeliers made in America or imported from Europe can still be seen in service in their original locations. Magnificent examples are the twelve-light brass chandelier at the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, from the early 1700s (Fig. 1); the enormous multi-tiered brass chandelier in St. Michael’s Church in Charleston, South Carolina, ordered in 1803, and the mid-1800s Cornelius and Baker gasolier in the Vermont State House. Provenance for multi-branched lighting fixtures made for domestic architecture is much harder to establish. Newer lighting technology and fashions prompted owners to replace them, releasing older chandeliers into the antiques market. Solid silver chandeliers are exceptional in every category. Silver’s material properties hold desirable qualities similar to brass—reflectivity for candlelight as well as tensile strength and heat tolerance– but at a higher price. Unlike more humble lighting f ixtures, their high intrinsic va lue generated documentation when ownership changed. In Europe, silver chandeliers illuminated chapels and churches, particularly in baroque Spain and its colonies, or in monarchs’ private spaces. An elaborate, ten-light chandelier acquired by the first Duke of Devonshire in the late seventeenth century for Chatsworth House still remains in the state apartments (Fig. 2). Early American newspapers mentioned silver chandeliers in relation to Europe; such extravagant fixtures appear only to have first arrived here with the collecting zeal of the twentieth century. 1 Winterthur Museum has approximately ninety historic chandeliers, primarily metal rather than glass or crystal, and almost all providing light for the house rooms and galleries. A stand out in the collection is the rare silver chandelier acquired at an auction in 1934 in New York (Figs. 3, 4). The delicate Luxurious Lighting by Ann Wagner Fig. 1: Touro Synagogue interior showing twelve-light chandelier (center), inscribed 1728, probably England. Brass. Courtesy: CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons (48760457). Fig. 2: Ten-light chandelier in the State Closet, Chatsworth House, ca. 1694, England. Silver. Courtesy Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England (DSC03230).