PAIGE O'HARA:
The candlesticks in this case were designed by Juste Aurèle Meissonnier, an extravagant innovator of the Rococo style. Meissonier was trained as a goldsmith, but spent his career providing drawings for objects that others produced.

Curator Wolf Burchard on the rotating candlestick:

WOLF BURCHARD:
Meissonier was probably the most important Rococo figure in 18th century France. He produced a great number of designs that were spread across Europe and then copied in various media--gilt bronze, silver, and porcelain. The candlestick we’re looking at here is almost like an abstract sculpture of C- curves and S- curves and undulations creating a strong sense of movement as our eye is led across that very complicated surface. That is a different kind of animation, if you will.

PAIGE O'HARA:
The character called Lumiere, meaning “light” in French, is a cheerful romantic and Rococo candlesticks served as a visual source for his development. Movement, which was so important to Meissonier, was also central to Lumiere’s flamboyant personality.

DON HAHN:
When you look at a candelabra, it does have a head and arms. So there is a little anthropomorphic basis for turning that into some sort of creature. And to take that to its ridiculous conclusion, which is our job as cartoonists, and imagine all the characteristics that that might have, that if you were a living object and your hands were always on fire and your head was always on fire, what would that mean? If you could blow out your hands, but they would always re-light, and you were a hopeless romantic. All those things started to add up to be Lumiere.