{"product_id":"vintage-cast-palm-tree-candlesticks-pair-verdigris-c-1950-1990","title":"Vintage Cast Palm Tree Candlesticks, Pair, Verdigris, c. 1950–1960","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA pair of cast palm-tree candlesticks, each a trunk rising from a domed base to a crown of spreading fronds that opens into the drip pan.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe base is a shallow dome on a stepped rim, cast around its slope with a ring of radiating fronds so the tree appears to stand in its own undergrowth. The rim finishes in a clean turned edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe trunk tapers as a real palm does, thick at the ground and narrowing as it rises, and it is cast the whole way up with the diamond lattice a palm leaves behind as its old frond bases drop away. The pattern is irregular, not a repeating machined grid, so the texture reads as bark rather than as ornament.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe crown is the best of it. Ten fronds spread from a collar at the top of the trunk, each one modelled with a raised midrib and engraved herringbone veining running out to the tip, each dipping and lifting at a slightly different angle. They form a wide, shallow pan, and the candle socket stands at the centre of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery frond is pierced with a small round hole near its tip — ten of them on each crown, consistent in size and placement, cast or drilled with intent rather than opened by damage. They are the right size and the right position to carry hanging glass drops, which is how palm-form lights of this kind were often dressed, though nothing hangs from them now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sticks are built as separate castings drawn together on a central rod: base, trunk, and frond crown, with a visible collar at each junction and a machined bushing through the underside of the base.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe surface is a deep copper-brown with green verdigris standing in the recesses of the bark and around the base ornament, rubbed back on the high points of the fronds and the rim to a lighter metal. Both undersides are felted, the felt worn through to the adhesive across the bearing areas.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe palm has been a decorator’s motif for two hundred years, and it has meant something slightly different each time it came back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRegency England took it from Egypt and India, by way of the campaigns and the trade routes, and put palm trunks and frond capitals on furniture, firedogs, bed posts and light fittings as a mark of the exotic reach of empire. The colonial houses of the tropics used it plainly, because that was what grew outside. And the twentieth century took it back up repeatedly — in the 1930s, and hard again through the later decades, when British Colonial and Hollywood Regency decorating made palm-form lamps, candlesticks and tables a staple of the good furniture trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis pair belongs to that decorative line rather than to the architectural one. They are made the way quality cast lighting hardware has been made for a very long time: separate castings stacked on a threaded rod and drawn up tight, which lets a maker combine a base, a stem and a crown from different moulds and finish the assembly as one object. Felt on the underside is the same instinct — these were made to stand on polished furniture.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe frond holes are worth noting honestly. Ten to a crown, even in size and position, they are a deliberate feature of the casting rather than later damage, and they would carry hanging drops. Whether they ever did is not established here and no drops are present.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn date, the construction and finish carry it and neither carries it far. Rod-assembled castings, a copper-toned patinated finish with verdigris grown into the recesses, and felted bases are the practice of the decorative metal trade across a long span. The wear is real: the felt is worn through where the sticks have stood, the frond tips and the base rim are rubbed back to lighter metal, and the verdigris has grown in the protected recesses rather than been painted on. On that evidence the pair is offered as c. 1950–1990.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNeither stick carries a maker’s mark or a country of origin. One base carries inked inventory marks from a previous owner or dealer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne thing is left open rather than guessed. The alloy has not been verified. The colouring is a copper-toned patinated finish, and where the high points are rubbed a lighter metal shows beneath it, which is consistent with more than one body metal. A magnet, a weight and a clean look at bare metal would settle it, and a solid copper alloy would place this pair materially higher than it is offered at here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePair of cast palm-tree candlesticks with frond crowns forming the drip pans\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSeparate castings — domed base, tapered trunk, ten-frond crown — drawn together on a central rod, with a collar at each junction and a machined bushing through the base. Felted undersides.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eModelling\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTrunk cast with the irregular diamond lattice of palm bark; base cast with a ring of radiating fronds around the dome; each crown frond with a raised midrib and engraved herringbone veining\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFrond holes\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEach frond pierced with a small round hole near the tip, ten to a crown, even in size and placement and deliberate to the design. Suitable for hanging drops; none are present and none are supplied.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eFinish\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCopper-toned patinated surface with green verdigris standing in the recesses, rubbed back on the frond tips, bark ridges and base rim\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCast metal. The alloy has not been verified and none is claimed: the colouring is a surface finish, and a lighter metal shows where the high points are rubbed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eNo maker’s mark and no country of origin on either stick. Inked inventory marks on one base from a previous owner or dealer.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eDimensions\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eApproximately 10 in high, base approximately 4½ in in diameter, frond crown approximately 5½ in across\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ec. 1950–1960. Rod-assembled castings, a copper-toned patinated finish and felted bases are long-running practice in the decorative metal trade and do not date closely on their own. What the pair does carry is genuine wear: felt worn through where the sticks have stood, frond tips and base rims rubbed back to lighter metal, and verdigris grown into the protected recesses rather than applied. A verified alloy, or a maker’s mark found under the felt, would narrow this considerably.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSound and stable as a pair. Both stand square without rock, both sockets are clear and take a standard taper, and all twenty fronds are present with no breaks, splits or repairs. The castings are tight on their rods with no wobble at the collars. Surface wear is honest and even: the finish is rubbed back on the frond tips, the bark ridges and the base rims, with verdigris standing in the recesses. Both felts are worn through to the adhesive across the bearing areas and discoloured. A small spot of red paint on one frond. Light inked marks to one base. No candle wax in either socket. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA palm tree is a strange and very good thing to put a candle in.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost candlesticks are an abstract shape — a baluster, a column, a stem. This one is a picture of something, and it stays legible from across a room: trunk, bark, crown, the fronds lifting at different angles the way real ones do. It carries a table on its own without needing anything arranged around it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLit, the crown does the work. The fronds catch the flame from below and throw a spoked shadow up a wall, and because the ten of them sit at slightly different heights the shadow is uneven and alive rather than a flat star.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe colour is the easy part. Copper-brown with green standing in the recesses is a palette that agrees with almost everything — dark wood, painted furniture, rattan, brass, limewash — and reads as warm in a way that polished metal does not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA pair matters more with candlesticks than with almost anything else. Two flanking a mirror, a mantel, a pair of books or the ends of a table give you symmetry, and a single candlestick spends its life looking for its partner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey suit a British Colonial room, a conservatory, a green-painted library, a coastal house, or a modern interior where two dark sculptural objects are doing all the decorating. Out of candle season they read as bronzes and stay on the shelf.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd the frond holes are an invitation. Ten fixing points on each crown will carry glass drops, small crystals, shell, or nothing at all — a detail whose original dressing is long gone and which a buyer can take up or leave alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn use. They take a standard taper. Use a drip protector or accept that wax will find the frond pan, and let wax cool hard before lifting it away rather than scraping it warm — the finish is a surface colouring and a blade will take it off.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn care. Dust with a soft dry brush into the bark lattice, which holds it. Do not polish, do not use metal cleaner and do not wash them: the verdigris in the recesses and the rubbed high points are the whole character, and a cleaner would strip in minutes what took decades to arrive. If a felt bothers you, replace it rather than removing it — the bare casting will mark furniture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48066713780329,"sku":"VE-1636","price":440.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/C9347075-6FD0-4F9E-90CC-2A482F9EDC9E.jpg?v=1789537870","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/vintage-cast-palm-tree-candlesticks-pair-verdigris-c-1950-1990","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}