A rare pair of Charles II silver wall lights, Thomas Jenkins, London, circa 1690

cast and chased shaped circular back plates incorporating a band of vases of fruit, acanthus and lodes, the branches formed right and left arms holding a foliate scroll supporting a cast-leaf drip pan and a plain cylindrical sconce, maker's mark only struck on back plates

Maker's mark only stamped to front bottom centre of back-plate within cast decoration. No obvious signs of repair. One arm a little loose to the back-plate. Nice crisp condition.
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The Baroque fashion for silver sconces, chandeliers and furniture reached its apogee at the court of Louis XIV, and it was imitated at all the European courts.¹ Such luxury is described by John Evelyn in the Duchess of Portsmouth's dressing room: "huge Vasas of wrought plate, Tables, Stands, Chimney furniture, Sconces, branches, Braseras &c they were all massive silver & without number". Sconces could be fitted with mirrored backs, or panels of polished silver, and could be hung against tapestries.

Large numbers of silver wall sconces were needed to illuminate the royal palaces. The Jewel Office warrant books, as well as the inventories of the royal plate, have frequent references to sconces and chandeliers. The inventory drawn up in 1721 lists a total of 195. Most however were consigned to the melting pot when the fashion for wall lighting declined in the middle of the eighteenth century, and, far more drastic, when technological innovations made the use of oil more widespread for lighting. Perhaps the best-documented disposal of quantities of silver sconces was the sale of many royal examples to the Royal Goldsmiths, Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, in 1808. Many of these, instead of being melted down, were sold as royal relics and found their way into collects ions in Lincolnshire, Drumlanrig in Scotland and Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.

These Thomas Jenkins sconces are unusual in that they are formed of an arm outstretched and their lack of any reflective surface behind the candle suggests the most extravagant use of candle wax. "Arm" sconces, probably deriving from medieval prototypes in wood or base metal, appear in prints by Jean Lepautre published in Paris in the 1660s² and it is evident that sconces of this form were popular in French interiors of the t.mes . No Paris examples appear however to have survived the great.mes ltings ordered by the King in 1689, making these English examples, and a smaller pair of similar form in the Victoria & Albert Museum,³ precious survivors of the French court style.

The only other recorded sconces by the important Restoration maker Thomas Jenkins are a set of six made for John Joliffe in 1687.⁴ Jenkins had a long working career, from 1668 to 1703, and from the large corpus of his surviving work it is clear he enjoyed the patronage of members of the court as well as church and civic corporations. The identity of the mark TI between escallops has only in recent years been identified as that of Jenkins.⁵ Judging from the use of the latest designs, such as these arm-form sconces, it is likely that Jenkins employed immigrant craft.mes n as designers, modellers and makers. Without exception his work is heavy and well-made. As Judith Banister commented, "the output of his Essex Street workshops include most of the usual objects made by leading silversmiths of the age, numerous tankards and porringers, footed salvers, bowls, cagework cups, candlesticks, ewers and toilet silver. He made grand garnitures of plate for display on chimney-pieces, and his special commissions included church and civic plate, at least one ewer and dish and, rarest of all, a silver warming-pan."⁶

1. See C. Arminjon, ed., Quand Versailles était.mes ublé d'argent, exh. cat., Château de Versailles, 2007, especially José Manuel Cruz Valdovino's essay "La vogue du mobilier d'argent: une origine espagnole?", pp.187-192, where the author discusses the fashion's possible origins with Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III of Spain, who married Louis XVIII in 1615.

2. For example, sconces of this form flank a doorway in print 3 of his series Fontaines et cuvettes, a set of six prints published by Pierre Mariette II and subsequently republished by Jombert in 1751; see Maxime Préaud, Inventaire du fonds français: Graveurs du XVIIe siècle, Jean Lepautre, vol. 12, part 2, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1998, p. 151, no. 1527 (see detail p.266).

3. They are hallmarked London, 1684, and have the maker's mark I.L. crowned; they are illustrated by Charles Oman in Caroline Silver, 1625-1688, London, 1970 (fig. 65B). They vary from the Jenkins examples in that they are slightly smaller at 17.5cm and the sconces are leaf-capped rather than plain.

4. Sold by his descendant the 4^th Baron Hylton, Replica Shoes 's, London, April 20, 1972, lot 100; subsequently in the collects ion of the late Lady Joseph and sold again Christie's, London, November 4 1998, lot 124.

5. A. Grimwade, "A case of Mistaken Identity. Thomas Jenkins: The Man", The Proceedings of the Society of Silver collects ors, 1976-1979, vol. II, nos. 11/13, pp. 185-186, and J. Banister, "A case of Mistaken Identity. Thomas Jenkins: 'The Master Craftsman', op. cit., pp. 187-193.

6. op. cit., p. 187.