30 
House & Garden 
CRYSTAL CANDELABRA and LIGHTING FIXTURES 
A Distinctive Detail of 18 th Century Decoration 
Now Enjoying a Well Deserved Revival 
FREDERICK WALLICK 
I T is a little difficult to recon¬ 
cile the reputation and reality 
of the 18th Century. Particu¬ 
larly in America, it exhales an 
atmosphere of sobriety, pretty 
manners, family prayers and a 
tendency toward the Puritanical, 
—an imagined environment 
which is not altogether substan¬ 
tiated by fact. Whatever our 
Colonial ancestors were spiritu¬ 
ally, they had a keen eye for the 
substantial necessities of their 
earthly sojourn. They builded 
their houses with walls and gird¬ 
ers of a suspicious staunchness, 
and then brazenly decorated 
them with such handiwork of the 
devil as leaded glass, marble 
mantels and crystal lighting fix¬ 
tures. 
What Is Crystal ? 
Of all the adornments of that 
pleasant age, none are more gay 
and vivacious than these crystal 
candelabra, wall brackets and 
ceiling pendants. Just how they 
came into their popularity we 
shall never know. History, that 
has so carefully recorded the in¬ 
ception and growth of almost 
every other domestic art, has 
failed to give us even the most 
fragmentary details of how crys¬ 
tal came into fashion. One or 
two devotees of glass collecting 
(judging from their writings, 
they are quite as fanatical as the 
searchers after antique furniture) have con¬ 
descended to tell us, in their chapters on the 
chemistry of glass, of its structure. It seems 
that, compared to crown, flint, plate and bottle 
glass, it contains a large percentage of oxide 
of lead, while soda alumnia and oxide of iron 
are entirely omitted. Intellectual and com¬ 
prehensive data indeed! 
So it is that after a vain search for some in¬ 
formation as to how it came to be so important 
a factor in 18th Century decoration, we are 
forced to this conjecture; that the use of cut 
glass pendants and beads on the arms and 
caps of lighting fixtures started through the 
desire to increase the brilliancy of candle 
light which was, of course, the only means of 
illumination during that age; that these per¬ 
fectly cut and moulded parts were made in 
great profusion and with consummate art in 
Austria and Italy and particularly in that cen¬ 
ter of the glass industry, Bohemia; that En¬ 
glish and American craftsmen found it 
simpler to import these separate parts and 
then assemble them according to some antique 
model or occasionally their own designs. 
Modern American Work 
This at least is the process being followed 
by modem American decorators. They have 
realized a growing demand for crystal of all 
sorts. They have bought whatever and wher¬ 
ever they could, of old pieces; but since this 
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Wedgwood bases in blue and 
white give distinction to the 
pair of Adam console crystal 
lights. The canopies and 
arms are metal 
pair of candlesticks sug¬ 
gesting the terrors of Ameri¬ 
can cut glass without the 
terrors. The cutting nowhere 
mars the contour 
An Adam mirror with crystal side columns 
and head bar. Escutcheons at top are glass; 
other parts antique brass 
method can supply only a small 
part of the public demand, they 
have obtained through whole- 
s a 1 e importers, the separate 
pendants, cups and bosses and 
had them made up in their own 
shops. A few have attempted to 
manufacture crystal, but the re¬ 
sults have fallen so far short on 
the clearness of the glass, its 
sharp cutting and consequent re¬ 
fractive powers that they have 
conceded their utter inability to 
match the original. 
Unusual Types 
Two of the photographs show 
candelabra for mantel or console. 
The shafts and arms in one are 
quite unusual; the bases are of 
blue and white pottery known as 
“Wedgwood.” In another the 
standards are made of five deli¬ 
cately turned glass columns and 
a note of bright color introduced 
in the ruby disks that hang under 
the glass canopy at the top and 
the bases for the candle cups. 
Another photograph shows an 
unusually happy combination of 
carved wood base and crystal 
candle arms and cups. It, too, 
is of the Adam period that de¬ 
lighted in delicate reedings and 
flat pattern in very low relief. 
The most unusual feature of this 
piece is the glass canopy and 
finial at the back. The photo¬ 
graph, unfortunately, does not 
show the supporting arm. 
The pair of candelabra with marble bases, 
Wedgwood inserts and dainty pagoda like 
brass canopies are very rare and are the pride 
of the Boston decorator who found them. The 
pendants and the arms are quite usual, but 
the standards, cut from mellow Sienna marble 
with ivory toned reliefs in the center, are of 
novel design. 
The five arm bracket shown in the sixth 
illustration is an Italian piece of the 17th 
Century. Here the pendants are of extraor¬ 
dinary size and intricacy of cutting. The 
stairway and trim of this room are tell-tale 
of Colonial antecedents, but the Italian high 
back chair, the hanging lamp and particularly 
the crystal wall fixture tone down the austerity 
of that rather stiff and uncompromising 
period. 
The pair of candlesticks on this page proves 
how far from the meaning of cut glass our own 
manufacturers of this material have gone. 
Here the cutting is quite superficial, never 
deep enough to mar the contour of the design 
or to confuse the reflections by heavy incisions. 
Contrast these pieces with the average cut 
glass punch bowl that for so many years was 
considered the paramount requisite of every 
fashionable household and the likely first pres¬ 
ent of the blushing bride. Thank Heaven 
that so called American “cut glass” is fast, 
vanishing into obscurity. 
