Chamber candlestick
Possibly Jacques I Serqueil
Not on view
Hand or chamber candlesticks were designed to be portable for carrying around the house to light one’s way to the bed chamber. Such pieces were created with an ample handle and pan to catch the melting wax. Possibly made by Jacques I Serqueil in Troyes, this chamber candlestick has a circular pan engraved with foliate strapwork, birds, and flowers. The curving handle is decorated with a mask and husk motifs, as well as an acanthus leaf. Guilloche moldings embellish the candle socket and the rim of the pan.
Daughter of one of the founders of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Catherine D. Wentworth (1865–1948) was an art student and painter who lived in France for thirty years. She became one of the most important American collectors of eighteenth-century French silver and on her death in 1948 bequeathed part of her significant collection of silver, gold boxes, French furniture, and textiles to the Metropolitan Museum. The collection is particularly strong in domestic silver, much of it provincial, as illustrated by this chamber candlestick of 1740–41.
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