LATE 19TH EARLY 20TH CENTURY

The celebrated Hadrianic figure of Antinous was popularised as 'Egyptian' furniture in the early 19th Century by the connoisseur Thomas Hope, who featured three versions of it in the illustration of the 'Egyptian' room at his Duchess Street mansion/museum in Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, London, 1807, pl. VIII. The prototype for the Piranesian candlebranches, with Apollo's sun-rayed griffin issuing from palm calyx, derives from a pattern for a French bronze candelabra (J. Bourne, Lighting in the Domestic Interior, London, 1991, fig. 538). Such candelabra were executed by the Liverpool sculptor William Bullock (d. c. 1840) who in 1805 advertised the opening of his Egyptian Hall showrooms and traded as 'Jeweller, Silversmith and Chinaman at the Museum and Bronze figure Manufactory'. His work was no doubt retailed by his brother George Bullock (d. 1818), who in that year entered into partnership with William Stoakes and refurbished the 'Grecian Rooms' in Church Street, Liverpool, which were noted in 1812 as containing 'statues, figures, tripods, antique lamps, sphinxes, griffins, etc. in marble bronze and artificial stone' (T. Rodrigues, et al, Treasures of the North, exhibition catalogue, Christie's London, January-February 2000, no. 116). A pair of candelabra of this model was sold anonymously, Christie's New York, 6 March 1991, lot 22 and another pair was sold in these Rooms, 11 April 1991, lot 6.