Object details
Object number
M30s15.1-2
Creator(s)
French
Title
Pair of Candelabra
Date
19th century
Medium
Wrought and cast iron
Dimensions
height of each: 157.48 cm (62 in.)
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Coat of arms: three wheat ears above a grasshopper
Provenance
Probably purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the Spanish painter and museum director José Villegas Cordero (1844-1921), Rome in 1895.
Commentary
While somewhat reminiscent of 15th-century forms and motifs, these two candelabras date to the 1800s. Standing on three lion’s paws, they boast drip pans supported by cut-out leaves, angular brackets with tiny human faces on their cusps, slithering dragons with candle spikes on their backs, and elaborate coronas decorated with an unidentified bishop’s coat of arms. They are an 1800s elaborate imagining of the ironwork of the 1400s.
Bibliography
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 268. (as 16th century Spanish)
Ronald Hilton. Handbook of Hispanic Source Materials and Research Organizations in the United States (Stanford, California, 1956), p. 196. (as Spanish, 15th century)
“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 6, no. 6 (7 Oct. 1962), p. 2. (as possibly French, 14th century-15th century)
Jane Geddes, "Fire-breathing Dragons from the ISGM Decorative Ironwork," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 19 August 2025, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/fire-breathing-dragons
Gallery
Gothic Room
Rights and reproductions
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