Conceived as antique candelabra, their columnar shafts are composed of an octagon of crystals and supported on palm-enriched pedestals with flowered ribbon-guilloche plinths. Their serpentined and acanthus-enriched branches support crystal-cut krater-vase nozzles. The larger candelabra is supported on an octagonal plinth with Jove's eagle-claws.
The architect John Papworth contributed designs to Rudolph Ackermann's Repository of Arts, 1809-28, and he produced patterns for related candelabra between 1816 and 1829, to be executed by John Blades for whom he also designed new glass showrooms on Ludgate Hill. (E.T. Joy, 'A Versatile Victorian Designer', Country Life, 15 January 1970, p. 130, fig. 1). Blades' showroom itself was illustrated in Ackermann in 1823 and this is reproduced on the back cover of the exhibition catalogue, Country House Lighting, Leeds, 1989. However, the same feet appear on designs, also in Ackermann, for candelabra made by Blades' neighbour in St. Paul's Churchyard, Pellatt and Green. A hanging-light design by them incorporates a faceted drum of apparently similar construction to the cylinders of these candelabra (P.Agius, Ackermann's Regency Furniture and Interiors, Marlborough, 1984, p. 135, pl. 121)
A glass vase with a related base signed by W. Collins was sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 27 June 1985, lot 67