Live Auction 2259Important Objects of Vertu, English, Continental and American Silver
Christie’s roundel
Lot 152 PROPERTY OF A LADY 

A VICTORIAN SILVER-GILT SEVEN-LIGHT CANDELABRUM

MARK OF ELKINGTON & CO., BIRMINGHAM, 1849

Closed22 May 2009

Price Realised

USD 21,250

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A VICTORIAN SILVER-GILT SEVEN-LIGHT CANDELABRUM
MARK OF ELKINGTON & CO., BIRMINGHAM, 1849
Set on triform scroll base set with putti and tools, the stem formed as a tree trunk, wrapped in a budding vine, supporting three two-light leaf-clad branches and a central socket, engraved with coat-of-arms, crest and inscription PRESENTED TO JAMES FOSTER, ESQUIRE, OF STOURTON CASTLE, by the Agents and Clerks in his Employ as a Testimonial of their Esteem and Respect. MARCH 1850, marked on base, also marked on one of tools, on each of three fruit applied near legs, on each two-light branch, and on central branch, sockets and four socket liners marked, the three putti with maker's mark, three socket liners apparently unmarked
28 in. (71.1 cm.) high; 301 oz. 10 dwt. (9,392 gr.)

Specialist note

James Foster (1786-1853), of Stourton Castle, was partner in the iron manufacturing company, John Bradley & Co., Stourbridge and in the firm Foster, Rastrick and Co., which engaged in product design, as well as furnace, sugar mill and steam locomotive manufacture.

Foster's accumulation of wealth through the iron industry is a fine example of the entrepeneurial model during England's Industrial Revolution. Foster's assets were comprised of even parts landed estates and collieries or foundries that employed many such clerks and agents of the kind that would have commissioned this presentation candelabrum.
(See Ed. Roy Church, The Dynamics of Victorian Business, Problems and Perspectives to the 1870s, 1980, pp. 38-39.)