Estate / Collection: The Howard Phipps, Jr. Collection, Erchless, Old Westbury

Probably after a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Each circular top adjustable in height, supported by a fluted and acanthus molded stem on a foliate tripod base.

Height 39 1/2 inches (100.3 cm) , diameter 10 1/2 inches (26.8 cm); width at base 18 inches (45.7 cm)

A pair of related Royal Ironworks Torchères, possibly after a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel are located in the Metropolitan Museum, New York

Object nr. 2007.188.1,.2

The roots of the Royal Berlin Foundry can be traced back to the establishment of the Königliche Eisengiesserei or Royal Berlin Foundry in 1804. The Royal Berlin Foundry produced iron goods such as vases, knife stands, candelabra, bowls, plaques, medallions and jewellry as well as more commercial articles such as fences, bridges and garden furniture.

The design of these torchères demonstrates the oeuvre of the Prussian architect and designer Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841). Schinkel set the stylistic tone in Prussia. By the early nineteenth century designers moved away from a somber interpretation of Greek and Roman references in order to create a bold Napoleonic Empire style that had a profound effect on artists and craftsmen across Europe in the 1820s and 1830s. The impetus for this new classicism was largely the Recueil de décoration intérieure by Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine published in installments from 1801 to 1811. Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Saxon architect and designer Leo von Klenze (1784-1864) in Munich were heavily influenced by Percier and Fontaine’s work, though both veered more toward a Grecian paradigm, in part as a reaction to the French Empire style, which was more of an interpretation of Roman models.