A Pair of Italian Baroque Gilt Bronze Mounted Rock Crystal Candlesticks, Probably Naples, circa 1650

William Salomon (1852-1919), 1020 Fifth Avenue, New York;

The Notable Collection of the Art of the Italian Renaissance and French 18th Century belonging to the Estate of the Late William Salomon of New York City, American Art Galleries, New York, 4-7 April 1923, lot 325, acquired by French & Co., New York for $2400;

Galerie Kugel, Paris

Comparative Literature:

Denise Allen et al. (eds.), Italian Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2022.

Paola D’Agostino, ‘Neapolitan Metalwork in New York: Viceregal Patronage and the Theme of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception’, Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 43, New York 2008, p.117-130.

Bernardo De Dominici, Vite de' pittori, scultori, ed architetti napoletani, Naples 1742

These monumental candlesticks, based on the form of Gothic pricket candlesticks originally formed part of a larger set intended for an altar or other ecclesiastic setting and were likely produced in Naples. They are very similar in model and scale to a surviving set of six formerly in the Al Thani Collection at the Hôtel Lambert, Paris (sold Sotheby's Paris, 11 October 2022, lot 12; €1,184,500), that have been linked to the work of Orazio Scoppa (fl.1607-47). Scoppa was one of the leading silversmiths in Naples during the first half of the seventeenth century, a period when the city witnessed an important development of both civic and religious buildings and interiors, including the San Gennaro Chapel built to house the celebrated ampoules of the martyr saint's blood, for which Scoppa designed the entrance gates.

In 1642 Scoppa published sixteen engraved designs for secular and ecclesiastic silver, which the art historian Bernardo de’ Dominici would describe one hundred years later as an ‘erudito Libro di molti, e vari ornamenti per Urne, Piramidi, Braccieri d’Altare, ed altre belle invenzioni per tener lumi accesi, di varie cappriciose figure’ (an erudite volume of multiple and diverse ornaments for vases, bases, altar candlesticks and other beautiful inventions for holding lit candles, of various fanciful figural forms). Several of these prints are conserved in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and plate X1 (Acc. No. 17349) illustrates an architectonic candlestick with a very similar crown-shaped drip pan and the same distinctive cherub's heads mounted at a forty-five degree angle. A similar cherub's head appears on the head of a silver crozier attributed to Scoppa now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (1988.45).

Rock crystal, whose name derives from the Ancient Greek work krystallos for ice, is a quartz mineral that has been mined since Antiquity and long prized for its translucent, diamond-like qualities. It was used for jewellery and ornamental objects and worked by stonecutters in a similar manner to other semi-precious stones like agate, jasper, bloodstone and lapis lazuli, often mounted in gilt bronze and other metals to create artworks for royal and aristocratic treasuries and kunstkammern. The choice of such a luxurious material characterised the aesthetic of the period, and Scoppa worked with the prominent Lombard-born Cosimo Fanzago (1591-1678), one of the most important architects of the Neapolitan Baroque and whose most celebrated projects was the interiors of the Certosa di San Martino, which incorporated an opulent display of inlaid polychrome marbles that laid the foundation for a local industry in marble and hardstone work that would culminate in the establishment of a royal pietre dure factory in 1736.

It has also been suggested that rock crystal was viewed as a symbol of the Immaculate Conception, its purity seen as compatible with the religious doctrine that the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin. Although disputed within the Catholic Church at the time, the dogma was widely accepted both in Naples and in Spain, by whom the Viceroyalty of Naples was politically controlled at the time. Spanish officials commissioned many works from Neapolitan artists for use in projects back in Spain, notably those ordered from Fanzago by the Viceroy Manuel de Zúñiga y Fonseca, Count of Monterrey (1586-1653) for the new Augustinian Convent of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception in Salamanca during the 1630s. It is possible the present candlesticks might also have been destined for a Spanish patron.

This pair comes from a larger group of three pairs of slightly varied height, which were all in the important collection of Italian Renaissance and French 18th Century paintings and furniture belonging to the banker William Salomon housed in his 1906 residence at 1020 Fifth Avenue, at the junction with 83rd Street overlooking Central Park. Following Salomon's death the collection was sold in a four-day auction in 1923, and the present lot, the tallest of the three pairs, is visible in the auction catalogue's interior photographs of the house in the Dining Room, a sumptuously decorated space conceived in the taste of a 16th-century Italian palazzo with a richly carved coffered ceiling and columns, hung with tapestries and furnished with Renaissance or Renaissance style chairs, draw leaf table and consoles. The smallest of the three pairs, lot 327 in the auction, is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (50.145.57, .58), and interestingly Salomon had another set of two pairs of altar candlesticks of very similar model (lots 323 and 324 in the sale), and the Metropolitan Museum also has a further related pair from the J.P. Morgan Collection (17.190.831, 32) which has traditionally been associated with the work of the Roman Baroque architect Stefano Maderno. The Salomon house was pulled down shortly after the auction and replaced with a thirteen-story apartment block designed by Warren and Wetmore, also in an Italian Renaissance style.