Altar candlestick

These altar candlesticks, each cast in six separate segments around an iron rod and fixed to a triangular bronze plinth, are decorated with figures of Virtues and female caryatids. Three pairs of nearly identical candlesticks — graded in height — are in the church of Santa Maria della Salute, Venice. They have been convincingly attributed by Avery to Andrea di Alessandri from Brescia, a master founder documented in Venice in the 1560s.2 Certain elements — notably their triangular-shaped bases with sphinxes and the arrangement of the Virtues — recall the large signed candelabrum that “Il Bresciano” made for the same church, as Avery has argued.3 Although the inclusion of the Holy Spirit in the decoration indicates that the Lehman candlesticks were intended for use on an altar, there is no reason to assume that they once belonged to the ensemble in Santa Maria della Salute. Corresponding closely in height and iconography with the medium-size set in the Venetian church, they would merely double the other pair.4 It is more likely that Andrea di Alessandri or his workshop cast this apparently successful model for other churches as well.

Catalogue entry from: Frits Scholten. The Robert Lehman Collection. European Sculpture and Metalwork, Vol. XII. Frits Scholten, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press, 2011, pp. 200-201.

Notes:
1. Avery, Charles. "Not Quite Sansovino and Not Quite Vittoria: Andrea di Alessandri, Called Il Bresciano." Documentary Appendix by Victoria Avery. Sculpture Journal 9, 2003, pp. 53 – 57 and figs. 17 – 19.
2. Ibid., p. 50.
3. The height of the pair in Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, is 63.5 centimeters.

Lord Swansea, Singleton Abbey, Wales; Swansea sale, 13-19 October 1919 (sale held at Singleton Abbey), lot 615 (for pounds 735); [Duveen Brothers, New York]. Acquired by Philip Lehman through Duveen in December 1920.