A PAIR OF DUTCH GILTWOOD FIVE-BRANCH CHANDELIERS

Elaborate rococo chandeliers such as the present pair are typical of those made in Holland in the 18th century. A comparable gilded limewood chandelier is in the Rijksmuseum, in the style of the Amsterdam carver Assueris van Weeghal (master sculptor in 1755), and was included in the exhibition Rococo in Nederland, Amsterdam, 2001 (see the exhibition catalogue, p. 194, no. 105) and also in the exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York Rococo: The Continuing Curve 1730-2008, New York, 2008 (see R. Baarsen, 'Rococo in Holland', Rococo: The Continuing Curve, New York, 2008, pp. 154-156, fig. 8).
Such chandeliers had previously been thought to be English in manufacture and one is illustrated in F. Lenygon (M. Jourdain writing under a pseudonym), Decoration in England 1660-1770, London, 1914, p. 284, fig. 347.