20 BULLETIN 141^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL, MUSEUM 



long, sharp iron spike for sticking in a convenient wooden wall. A 

 pair of these is in the fisheries collection of the National Museum. 

 (PL 11a, fig. 6, 7, Cat. No. 54416, Gloucester, Mass.; J. W. Collins; 

 10.2 inches (26 cm.) long.) They were used in the hold in storing 

 fish. 



PRICKET CANDLESTICKS 



It has seemed necessary to use the name pricket candlestick for 

 the candlestick having a spine on which the candle is stuck and 

 socket candlestick for the common type used to-day. In practice 

 it suffices to understand that candlestick means the socket type. The 

 pricket type is found in eastern Asia and Europe. The surviving 

 European examples are almost entirely ecclesiastical and large, for 

 placing on altars. The pricket would suffice for holding the candle 

 on stationary candlesticks, but for ambulant candlesticks the socket 

 would seem better. The Museum has an excellent specimen in the 

 form of a seven-branch wrought-iron processional candelabrum with 

 prickets. The stem is expanded into a disk, and below is a socket 

 for a staff by which the lights were carried. The specimen is of the 

 fourteenth century. (PI. 12, fig. 3, Cat. No. 176329, France; S. B. 

 Dean; 32.5 inches (57 cm.) high, 13.3 inches (34 cm.) wide.) Two 

 pricket church candlesticks of European provenance are figured in 

 Plate 12. Figure 1 is of heavy bronze with large base and a drip 

 catcher above, in the center of which is the spike. (Cat. No. 289421, 

 Hildesheim, Germany; Anton Heitmuller; 20 inches (51 cm.) high.) 

 This specimen may be taken as type of the massive roundel church 

 candlesticks of the north. Figure 2 is a Spanish example of carved 

 wood skillfully plated over with sheet iron, painted and gilt. Altar 

 candlesticks of this sort are sometimes very large and are frequently 

 observed in Spain. (Cat. No. 289421, Spain; Anton Heitmuller; 

 19.3 inches (49 cm.) high.) A spike stick two-arm iron wall light 

 of the fourteenth or fifteenth century is represented as driven be- 

 tween the stones of a wall. This rare specimen is of handwork 

 in soft iron, is very strong, and of graceful outline. (PI. 13, fig. 3, 

 Cat. No. 169094, England; S. B. Dean; 11 inches (28 cm.) wide.) 



Asiatic pricket candlesticks are practically confined to China and 

 Japan, and are usually representations of mythological beings. The 

 candlesticks accompanying the ceremonial set used in ancestor wor- 

 ship at present may be excepted. The bronze figure holding a v?*^ 

 with flower candlestick appears to be one of a pair employed a lon^f 

 time ago in such worship. It is from the Henry J. Heinz collection, 

 Pittsburgh, Pa. (PL 12, fig. 4, Cat. No. (1748 Heinz), China.) The 

 pricket is observed on a finely made folding candlestick from Japan 

 and a stork standing on the back of a turtle and bearing a branch 



