A fine and rare Pair of Ormolu Candlesticks attributed to Giuseppe Boschi (Rome 1766 - 1821) having flame sconces with flower & bird stems with crane & ramshead corners above further section with scroll & anthemion decoration supported on griffon legs ending on lion’s paw feet.
The overall form is derived from an example by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 1778), now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
 
These candlesticks are similar to a design by Giuseppe Boschi in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no. D.1498-1898).
The overall form is derived from an example by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 1778), now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (accession no. ANMichaelis.242).
 
The architect Henry Holland helped to fund the young Charles Heathcote Tatham's trip to Italy which began in 1794 and, whilst there, Tatham bought and commissioned a variety of items for his patron, with several from Giuseppe Boschi. Tatham wrote to Holland in July 1795 'The articles you have fixed upon, viz. the Egyptian figure, the Caryatide and the candelabra were obtained from Giusseppe Boschi, an obscure artist here, whose designs as well as prices, both for merit and reasonable demand, induced me to procure them.' (Nicholas Goodison, 'Minerva and Pupils', Furniture History 29 (1993): 143–46.)).
 
The three cranes were an element which Tatham admired as they feature on a number of his designs, including one published in 1806 in his Etchings representing Fragments of Grecian and Roman architectural ornaments, 1806, described as 'A Branch Light designed & executed in Bronze at Rome in the Year 1796'. A set of four stands strongly influenced by this design was created by Tatham Bailey and Sanders in 1811 for Carlton House, the residence of the Prince Regent (later George IV) (Royal Collections Trust no. RCIN 2423).
 
Giuseppe Boschi (b. 1766, active in Rome in 1783) was renowned for his antiquity scale models and was awarded the prize from the Saint Luc Academy. Whilst not as well known as some of his contemporaries, such as Zoffoli and Righetti, he was recommended by Antonio Canova and Angelika Kauffmann and was one of the chief suppliers of items in the Grand Tour taste.