Medieval and Renaissance Interior Lighting: Candlesticks, Candelabras, and Chandeliers

	Candlesticks, Candelabras, & Chandeliers
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The following links to period artwork and artifacts present a survey of candle-holders, whether wall-mounted, ceiling-mounted (chandeliers), or free-standing (candlesticks and candelabras), focused largely on domestic and secular examples. I've attempted to classify and organize them into different headings, to facilitate navigation of this list; my attempts at classification is not an official taxonomy of pre-17th century lighting fixtures. Most such items represented in period artwork as gold-toned are probably copper or brass (as demonstrated in several extant examples in this list), but they could also be a gilt metal. Let There Be Light also features some additional artworks and artifacts for these and other period lighting sources; other articles of interest include History of Lighting Traced by Science, Master Bedwyr Danwyn's "Medieval Lighting" guides, and these links on medieval lighting too. I've also seen some interesting 15th-16th century candlesticks at a webpage for Huntington Antiques, but I'm not sure how long those photos will appear online. ANTHROPOMORPHIC CANDLESTICKS Bronze candlestick: a man, 6th century? Woman holding a tree-branch, 12th century (also side and back) Bronze candlestick: a kneeling page, Flanders, ca. 1300 A jester, Lower Rhine, c. 1300 A young page, German, 14th-15th century German candlesticks, 15th-16th centuries Double candlestick: a crossbowman, Rhineland, 15th century Bronze candlestick: a young man with large sleeves (also here, here, and here), Lower Rhine, 15th century Fragmentary double candlestick - figure of a man with his arms outstretched (also here), Netherlands, 15th century Double candlestick of a man (a servant?) with his arms outstretched, South Tyrol, 15th century Base of a bronze candlestick: a wild man, France, 15th century Candlestick: St. Christopher, brass, second half of the 15th century Brass candlestick: a fool, Germany, c. 1500 Brass or bronze candlestick: a young man, Germany, early 16th century Bronze candlestick: a fashionable young man (also here), Nuremburg, 16th century Bronze candlestick: an armored man, Germany, 16th century Brass candlestick: a bearded man, Germany, early to mid-16th century Brass candlestick: a landsknecht, Germany, 16th century Bronze candlestick: a young man (also here) Nuremburg, 16th century ZOOMORPHIC CANDLESTICKS (ANIMALIERS) Bronze bird-shaped lamp, Rhine, 12th-14th century Romanesque candelholder: a stag, bronze, 12th century Pricket candlestick: an elephant, cast bronze, Germany, c. 1200-1300 Candlestick: a horse (also here), Germany, c. 1300 Candleholder: a stag, Dinant, 14th century Pricket candleholder with a monster holding a shield, 14th-15th centuries COMBINATION ANTHROPOMORPHIC/ZOOMORPHIC CANDLESTICKS Two candleholders: a man riding a horse, and a man riding a lion, 12th century Bronze candlestick: a young man fighting a dragon (with traces of gilding), Meuse Valley, 1140-1160 Bronze candlestick: a lady riding sidesaddle, Magdeburg, 1140-1160 Gilded bronze candlestick: a man riding on a lion's back, northern Germany, 1150-1200 Copper candlestick: Samson riding a lion, Lower Saxony, 1200-1240 Gilt bronze candlestick: Samson and the Lion, Mosan workshop, early 13th century Bronze candleholder with a man riding a double-headed dragon, Hildesheim, first half of the 13th century PRICKET CANDLESTICKS Copper alloy candleholder, c. 1000 The Gloucester Candlestick, gilt cast-metal alloy, England, c. 1104-1113 (see video) Gilded bronze candlestick with fantastical creatures and crystal, Meuse Valley, 1150-1175 Gilded-copper candlestick base with champlevé enamel, Limoges, 1150-1200 Gilded copper candlestick with champlevé enamel, Limoges, 1170-1200 Bronze candlestick, France, 1180-1200 A pair of candlesticks from Salzburg, c. 1200-1220 Pricket candleholder, Lower Saxony, 13th century Pricket candleholder with grotesques (another view), western Germany, 13th century Copper-gilt candlestick with heraldic decorations in champlevé enamel, Limoges, 1270-1300 Copper-gilt candlestick for travel, with the arms of France, Champagne, and Turenne in champlevé enamel, Limoges, 1280-1300 Gilded bronze candlestick, Meuse Valley, 1280-1380 Pricket candlestick with heraldic decoration (the combined arms of Bernard VIII, count of Comminges, and his second wife, Marguerite de Turenne, alternating with the royal arms of France) in champlevé enamel on copper, France, early 14th century Silver-gilt and enamel candlestick, Venice, 14th century Candlestick made in France in the 14th or 15th century Pricket candleholders, 14th-15th centuries Pair of pricket candleholders, 15th century Pair of pricket candleholders, Germany, 15th century Wooden pricket candl stick, Regensburg, 15th century Pricket candleholder and another pricket candleholder, Rhineland, 15th century Pricket candleholder, Lower Rhine, 15th century Bronze candlestick, Dijon, 15th century Jokob Mulner from the Mendel Hausbuch, 1471 A candleholder which holds three candles on prickets, supported in sockets, from Bardejov, Slovakia, c. 1490-1510 Candlestick in The Death of Mary from the altarpiece at Mariapfarr, c. 1495-1505 Pricket candlestick, Netherlands (Meuse Valley), 16th century --> Pricket candleholder, Lower Rhine, 16th century Brass pricket candleholder, Lower Rhine, 16th century Brass pricket candleholder, Lower Rhine, 16th century Pricket candleholder, Rhineland, 16th century Pair of pricket candleholders, Rhineland, 16th century SOCKET CANDLESTICKS French candlesticks made in the 14th or 15th centuries here and here Portable candle holder, copper alloy, Gloucestershire, c. 14th-15th century Candlestick, Netherlands, 14th-15th century An unusual hammered-iron candlestick, 15th century Candlestick, 15th century Copper candlestick, 15th century Suckling Madonna Enthroned by Jan van Eyck, c. 1436 Detail from The Birth of Mary, c. 1460-1465 German candlesticks, 15th-16th centuries Double candlestick, Netherlands, 15th century Brass candlestands, 15th century Cast-iron candlestick, Germany, first half of the 15th century Annunciation by Robert Campin, 1420s The Mérode Altarpiece by Robert Campin, 1427 (detail) Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, 1432 (detail) Illustration in The Decameron (BNF Arsenal 5070, fol. 215v), 1432 Detail from The Death of Mary, c. 1438-1440 Alexander in disguise and Darius III, The History of Alexander (BNF Fr. 9342 fol. 105v), 1448-1449 Presentation scene, Directorium ad passagium faciendum/Voyage to Outremer (BNF Fr. 9087, fol. 1), third quarter of the 15th century Kuncz Franck from the >Mendel Hausbuch, 1458 St. Jerome in his Study by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1480 Annunciation in the Coronation of Mary altarpiece at Spisska Kapitula, Slovakia, 1499 Hypermestra, Ovid's Heroides (BNF Fr. 873, fol. 90v), 15th-16th century Cast brass candlestick, England, c. 1500 Detail from the delivery of a newborn, 1513 January from the Da Costa Hours (PML 399, fol. 2v), c. 1515 A candlestick, The Tudor Pattern Book (Ashmole 1504, fol. 3v), c. 1520-1530 The Money-Changer and his Wife by Marinus van Reymerswale, 1539 Two Tax Gatherers by Marinus van Reymerswaele, c. 1540 St. Jerome by Marinus van Reymerswale, 1541 Enameled candlestick with the Triumph of Diana attributed to Jean II de Court, c. 1565 Candlestick supported by three dolphins (also here), Germany, 16th century Brass candlestick, 16th century Wrought-iron three-footed candlestick, Germany, 16th century Candleholder, Germany, 16th century Two candlesticks, Germany, 16th century Pair of brass candlesticks (also here, and here), Germany, 16th century A candle holder from the Mary Rose (1545) Diptych of Peter Ulner by Bartholomew Bruyn the Younger, 1560 Brass candlestick, Germany, 16th century Knob from a 16th century German candlestick Stem of a 16th century brass candlestick found in Jamestown, Virginia WALL-MOUNTED LIGHTING Wall-mounted candleholder and another wall-mounted candleholder, Cologne, 14th century Oil lamp (with wall-mounting hanger and an animal on the lid), Cologne, 15th century Annunciation by Robert Campin, 1420s The Mérode Altarpiece by Robert Campin, 1427 (detail) Virgin and Child in an Interior, 1435 The Werl Altarpiece by Robert Campin, 1438 (detail) Annunciation Triptych by Rogier van der Weyden, 1440 detail) Wall-mounted candleholder, Florence, late 15th century The Flagellation of Christ and The Mocking of Christ from a retable at Medias, Romania, c. 1480-1490 Arm for a wall-mounted candleholder, mid-16th century PENDANT LIGHTING AND CHANDELIERS Chandelier, first half of the 15th century (caption info here) Brass chandelier with a lion, 15th century Flanders (note stylistic similarity to the Arnolfini chandelier, below) Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife by Jan van Eyck, 1434 (detail) Annunciation Triptych by Rogier van der Weyden, 1440 Madonna and child in an interior, c. 1450 Presenting the prize to the victor in the Tournament-Book of King René d'Anjou (BNF Fr. 2692, fol. 70v), 15th century Bal des ardents, Froissart's Chronicles (BNF Fr. 2646, fol. 176), second half of the 15th century Brass chandelier made in the southern Netherlands in the second half of the 15th century Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament by Dieric Bouts the Elder, 1464-67 Chandelier with an armored man and iron castles on an antler (a similar aesthetic to the leuchterweibchen), fourth quarter of the 15th century The Lute Player and the Harpist by Israhel van Meckenem the Younger, 1490 The Ambassadors Depart by Vittore Carpaccio, 1495-1500 Brass chandelier, 16th century January from the Da Costa Hours (PML 399, fol. 2v), c. 1515 A chandelier from Bardejov, Slovakia, c. 1500-1530 (obviously converted to electric some time in the 20th century) Brass chandelier with twelve lights and a wildman, made in southern Germany c. 1541-1560 A ball in Augsburg, c. 1590-1595

Candlesticks, Candelabras, & Chandeliers

A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age

The Medieval Household: Daily Living c.1150-c.1450

Medieval Sculpture and Works of Art: The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection

Constructing Medieval Furniture: Plans and Instructions With Historical Notes

The following links to period artwork and artifacts present a survey of candle-holders, whether wall-mounted, ceiling-mounted (chandeliers), or free-standing (candlesticks and candelabras), focused largely on domestic and secular examples. I've attempted to classify and organize them into different headings, to facilitate navigation of this list; my attempts at classification is not an official taxonomy of pre-17th century lighting fixtures.

Most such items represented in period artwork as gold-toned are probably copper or brass (as demonstrated in several extant examples in this list), but they could also be a gilt metal.

Let There Be Light also features some additional artworks and artifacts for these and other period lighting sources; other articles of interest include History of Lighting Traced by Science, Master Bedwyr Danwyn's "Medieval Lighting" guides, and these links on medieval lighting too.

I've also seen some interesting 15th-16th century candlesticks at a webpage for Huntington Antiques, but I'm not sure how long those photos will appear online.

ANTHROPOMORPHIC CANDLESTICKS

Bronze candlestick: a man, 6th century?
Woman holding a tree-branch, 12th century (also side and back)
Bronze candlestick: a kneeling page, Flanders, ca. 1300
A jester, Lower Rhine, c. 1300
A young page, German, 14th-15th century
German candlesticks, 15th-16th centuries
Double candlestick: a crossbowman, Rhineland, 15th century
Bronze candlestick: a young man with large sleeves (also here, here, and here), Lower Rhine, 15th century
Fragmentary double candlestick - figure of a man with his arms outstretched (also here), Netherlands, 15th century
Double candlestick of a man (a servant?) with his arms outstretched, South Tyrol, 15th century
Base of a bronze candlestick: a wild man, France, 15th century
Candlestick: St. Christopher, brass, second half of the 15th century
Brass candlestick: a fool, Germany, c. 1500
Brass or bronze candlestick: a young man, Germany, early 16th century
Bronze candlestick: a fashionable young man (also here), Nuremburg, 16th century
Bronze candlestick: an armored man, Germany, 16th century
Brass candlestick: a bearded man, Germany, early to mid-16th century
Brass candlestick: a landsknecht, Germany, 16th century
Bronze candlestick: a young man (also here) Nuremburg, 16th century

ZOOMORPHIC CANDLESTICKS (ANIMALIERS)

Bronze bird-shaped lamp, Rhine, 12th-14th century
Romanesque candelholder: a stag, bronze, 12th century
Pricket candlestick: an elephant, cast bronze, Germany, c. 1200-1300
Candlestick: a horse (also here), Germany, c. 1300
Candleholder: a stag, Dinant, 14th century
Pricket candleholder with a monster holding a shield, 14th-15th centuries

COMBINATION ANTHROPOMORPHIC/ZOOMORPHIC CANDLESTICKS

Two candleholders: a man riding a horse, and a man riding a lion, 12th century
Bronze candlestick: a young man fighting a dragon (with traces of gilding), Meuse Valley, 1140-1160
Bronze candlestick: a lady riding sidesaddle, Magdeburg, 1140-1160
Gilded bronze candlestick: a man riding on a lion's back, northern Germany, 1150-1200
Copper candlestick: Samson riding a lion, Lower Saxony, 1200-1240
Gilt bronze candlestick: Samson and the Lion, Mosan workshop, early 13th century
Bronze candleholder with a man riding a double-headed dragon, Hildesheim, first half of the 13th century

PRICKET CANDLESTICKS

Copper alloy candleholder, c. 1000
The Gloucester Candlestick, gilt cast-metal alloy, England, c. 1104-1113 (see video)

Gilded bronze candlestick with fantastical creatures and crystal, Meuse Valley, 1150-1175
Gilded-copper candlestick base with champlevé enamel, Limoges, 1150-1200
Gilded copper candlestick with champlevé enamel, Limoges, 1170-1200
Bronze candlestick, France, 1180-1200
A pair of candlesticks from Salzburg, c. 1200-1220
Pricket candleholder, Lower Saxony, 13th century
Pricket candleholder with grotesques (another view), western Germany, 13th century
Copper-gilt candlestick with heraldic decorations in champlevé enamel, Limoges, 1270-1300
Copper-gilt candlestick for travel, with the arms of France, Champagne, and Turenne in champlevé enamel, Limoges, 1280-1300
Gilded bronze candlestick, Meuse Valley, 1280-1380
Pricket candlestick with heraldic decoration (the combined arms of Bernard VIII, count of Comminges, and his second wife, Marguerite de Turenne, alternating with the royal arms of France) in champlevé enamel on copper, France, early 14th century
Silver-gilt and enamel candlestick, Venice, 14th century
Candlestick made in France in the 14th or 15th century
Pricket candleholders, 14th-15th centuries
Pair of pricket candleholders, 15th century
Pair of pricket candleholders, Germany, 15th century
Wooden pricket candl stick, Regensburg, 15th century
Pricket candleholder and another pricket candleholder, Rhineland, 15th century
Pricket candleholder, Lower Rhine, 15th century
Bronze candlestick, Dijon, 15th century
Jokob Mulner from the Mendel Hausbuch, 1471
A candleholder which holds three candles on prickets, supported in sockets, from Bardejov, Slovakia, c. 1490-1510
Candlestick in The Death of Mary from the altarpiece at Mariapfarr, c. 1495-1505
Pricket candlestick, Netherlands (Meuse Valley), 16th century -->
Pricket candleholder, Lower Rhine, 16th century
Brass pricket candleholder, Lower Rhine, 16th century
Brass pricket candleholder, Lower Rhine, 16th century
Pricket candleholder, Rhineland, 16th century
Pair of pricket candleholders, Rhineland, 16th century

SOCKET CANDLESTICKS

French candlesticks made in the 14th or 15th centuries here and here
Portable candle holder, copper alloy, Gloucestershire, c. 14th-15th century
Candlestick, Netherlands, 14th-15th century
An unusual hammered-iron candlestick, 15th century
Candlestick, 15th century
Copper candlestick, 15th century
Suckling Madonna Enthroned by Jan van Eyck, c. 1436
Detail from The Birth of Mary, c. 1460-1465
German candlesticks, 15th-16th centuries
Double candlestick, Netherlands, 15th century
Brass candlestands, 15th century
Cast-iron candlestick, Germany, first half of the 15th century
Annunciation by Robert Campin, 1420s
The Mérode Altarpiece by Robert Campin, 1427 (detail)
Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, 1432 (detail)
Illustration in The Decameron (BNF Arsenal 5070, fol. 215v), 1432
Detail from The Death of Mary, c. 1438-1440
Alexander in disguise and Darius III, The History of Alexander (BNF Fr. 9342 fol. 105v), 1448-1449
Presentation scene, Directorium ad passagium faciendum/Voyage to Outremer (BNF Fr. 9087, fol. 1), third quarter of the 15th century
Kuncz Franck from the >Mendel Hausbuch, 1458
St. Jerome in his Study by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1480
Annunciation in the Coronation of Mary altarpiece at Spisska Kapitula, Slovakia, 1499
Hypermestra, Ovid's Heroides (BNF Fr. 873, fol. 90v), 15th-16th century
Cast brass candlestick, England, c. 1500
Detail from the delivery of a newborn, 1513
January from the Da Costa Hours (PML 399, fol. 2v), c. 1515
A candlestick, The Tudor Pattern Book (Ashmole 1504, fol. 3v), c. 1520-1530
The Money-Changer and his Wife by Marinus van Reymerswale, 1539
Two Tax Gatherers by Marinus van Reymerswaele, c. 1540
St. Jerome by Marinus van Reymerswale, 1541
Enameled candlestick with the Triumph of Diana attributed to Jean II de Court, c. 1565
Candlestick supported by three dolphins (also here), Germany, 16th century
Brass candlestick, 16th century
Wrought-iron three-footed candlestick, Germany, 16th century
Candleholder, Germany, 16th century
Two candlesticks, Germany, 16th century
Pair of brass candlesticks (also here, and here), Germany, 16th century
A candle holder from the Mary Rose (1545)
Diptych of Peter Ulner by Bartholomew Bruyn the Younger, 1560
Brass candlestick, Germany, 16th century
Knob from a 16th century German candlestick
Stem of a 16th century brass candlestick found in Jamestown, Virginia

WALL-MOUNTED LIGHTING

Wall-mounted candleholder and another wall-mounted candleholder, Cologne, 14th century
Oil lamp (with wall-mounting hanger and an animal on the lid), Cologne, 15th century
Annunciation by Robert Campin, 1420s
The Mérode Altarpiece by Robert Campin, 1427 (detail)
Virgin and Child in an Interior, 1435
The Werl Altarpiece by Robert Campin, 1438 (detail)
Annunciation Triptych by Rogier van der Weyden, 1440 detail)
Wall-mounted candleholder, Florence, late 15th century
The Flagellation of Christ and The Mocking of Christ from a retable at Medias, Romania, c. 1480-1490
Arm for a wall-mounted candleholder, mid-16th century

PENDANT LIGHTING AND CHANDELIERS

Chandelier, first half of the 15th century (caption info here)
Brass chandelier with a lion, 15th century Flanders (note stylistic similarity to the Arnolfini chandelier, below)
Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife by Jan van Eyck, 1434 (detail)
Annunciation Triptych by Rogier van der Weyden, 1440
Madonna and child in an interior, c. 1450
Presenting the prize to the victor in the Tournament-Book of King René d'Anjou (BNF Fr. 2692, fol. 70v), 15th century
Bal des ardents, Froissart's Chronicles (BNF Fr. 2646, fol. 176), second half of the 15th century
Brass chandelier made in the southern Netherlands in the second half of the 15th century
Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament by Dieric Bouts the Elder, 1464-67
Chandelier with an armored man and iron castles on an antler (a similar aesthetic to the leuchterweibchen), fourth quarter of the 15th century
The Lute Player and the Harpist by Israhel van Meckenem the Younger, 1490
The Ambassadors Depart by Vittore Carpaccio, 1495-1500
Brass chandelier, 16th century
January from the Da Costa Hours (PML 399, fol. 2v), c. 1515
A chandelier from Bardejov, Slovakia, c. 1500-1530 (obviously converted to electric some time in the 20th century)
Brass chandelier with twelve lights and a wildman, made in southern Germany c. 1541-1560
A ball in Augsburg, c. 1590-1595