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18th Century Pair Wedgwood Black Basalt Ware Triton Candlesticks

$12,500per set
£9,446.54per set
€10,851.07per set
CA$17,582.17per set
A$18,614.94per set
CHF 10,073.88per set
MX$222,482.72per set
NOK 125,569.56per set
SEK 114,828.91per set
DKK 81,043.53per set

About the Item

Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, 1780-1795, hollow-molded basalt stoneware, each mirror-formed triton figure depicted holding a whirlpool-handled torch with floriform capital, kneeling upon a flora-covered bolder, respectively impressed underneath "Wedgwood" and "WEDGWOOD," tallest 11 in. A similar pair were exhibited in 2020 at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, and are illustrated on page 140 of the accompanying literature, "Classic Black: The Basalt Sculpture of Wedgwood and His Contemporaries" by Brian D. Gallagher. Regarding these, he writes: Wedgwood and Bentley’s first trade catalogue, as well as all their subsequent ones, listed “A pair of Tritons, from Michael Angelo,” 11 inches high. Although there has never been any doubt that this description applies to the current examples, there appears to be no evidence that these forms derive from a model by Michaelangelo. What is more certain is that Josiah Wedgwood received the model for one of them from Sir William Chambers. In November 1769, Wedgwood wrote: "Mr Chambers lent me the model of the Triton candlestick, was to have the first pair as a present. Pray make my compliments with them." Perhaps irrelevant yet strangely coincidental is another passage of Wedgwood’s, this one written to Bentley two months before, on September 16, 1769. “I have sent Boot (an early modeler at the factory) to Etruria today to begin upon Terra Cotta figures, but I have only a Sphinx, Lyon, a Triton for him to begin with.” Four days after that, Wedgwood wrote again to Bentley, “Boot is making Tritons Sphinx’s, does them very well, better than I expected.” Was Boot working on an earlier version that was then abandoned when Chambers volunteered his model? Or did Wedgwood receive Chambers’s model in September, or earlier, and was writing in November simply to remind his correspondent that a pair of Triton candlesticks was due to Chambers? The latter seems more logical. There is additional confusion over who provided the mate to Chambers’s triton model. One suggestion has been John Flexman, Jr. He was fourteen in 1769, and so it seems unlikely that he had anything to do with creating the original image. It is possible, though, that he modeled a later, slightly altered version which added netting across the lower body of the triton and was produced in jasper. Another candidate for the maker of the basalt mate is John Bacon, the evidence for that seems to be a letter, dated June 4, 1779, from Wedgwood to Bentley, in which Wedgwood asks, “What shall we have to Match the large Trytons ... they would with metal branches make a most superb pair of Candelabras. Bacon would Model it very well in Clay if you would give him a design out of your books, or from some of your friends." If Wedgwood already had “Trytons,” however, why would he order another one? In addition, the current examples are candlesticks, not candelabra, and their nozzles are at the end of a cornucopia, not a branch, all in basalt, not metal. Finally, the mate is essentially the inverse of the original, and so why would Bacon, a competent sculptor, need a design from a book to imagine it? Wedgwood is more likely referring in his letter to finding a mate for his much larger Triton, for which he settled on a Neptune, both informed by Bernini prototypes.
  • Creator:
    Josiah Wedgwood (Workshop/Studio)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 11 in (27.94 cm)Width: 5 in (12.7 cm)Depth: 5 in (12.7 cm)
  • Sold As:
    Set of 2
  • Style:
    Neoclassical (Of the Period)
  • Materials and Techniques:
    Stoneware,Fired,Hand-Crafted,Molded,Unglazed
  • Place of Origin:
    England
  • Period:
    Late 18th Century
  • Date of Manufacture:
    1780
  • Condition:
    Wear consistent with age and use. Minor losses. Does not fluoresce under blacklight, minor white accretions, typical minor wear, exterior shrinkage crack at one base (pictured).
  • Seller Location:
    Asheville, NC
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU10245248455862

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