Design for a Candlestick

Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This design for a candlestick was made by the French artist Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau who was a proliferous designer of architecture, ornament and the decorative arts. His style and works are mainly known through the prints and books he produced and published in Orléans. In his works he combines French and Italian elements into heavily ornate designs which were very popular at the time. In 1548-1549 he published a series of candlestick designs of which three are known today. This design contains several classical elements which are most likely based directly on Italian examples. The base, for example, seems to have been inspired by a drawing by Giulio Romano. The curled-up ornaments in the layer above the lion’s feet are motifs particular to France however and relate back to the court style disseminated from the castle of Fontainebleau starting from the late 1530s. Through his prints, Du Cerceau himself played an important role in this dissemination during the second and third quarter of the 16th century.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art