A PAIR OF LATE GEORGE III BLACK-PAINTED PINE AND COMPOSITION PEDESTALS

The low pedestals, japanned Grecian black, have frieze-tablets wreathed by flower ribbon-guilloches in the 1770s French/antique fashion; while their herm-tapered pillars are embellished with bas-relief trophies evoking Mercury's caducean wand. Bronze caducean wands featured on pedestals supporting Pompeian tripod candelabra executed around 1800 for Thomas Hope's Duchess Street mansion/museum; while entwined serpents, in Pompeian fashion, featured on bronzes tripod-candelabra inventoried at Kedleston, Derbyshire in 1804 (see T. Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807 pl.11; and a pair of torsheres sold Christie's, London 5 July, 1995, lot 84).