A HIGHLY IMPORTANT CRYSTAL CHANDELIER BY CORNELIUS & BAKER
REF: FA1284
£ POA
An Exceptional 32 light silver mounted and cut crystal chandelier, suspended from a large trumpet, four concentric rings with glass rosettes hung with cascading prisms, the main frame incasing eight glass panels cut with floral decoration and shell motifs, the frame further issuing eight arms supporting drip pans and candle nozzle clusters, the frame terminating with three concentric rings two of which are hung from scalloped dishes, the chandelier hung with rectangular buttons,prismatic drops and octagonal finial.
- Height 190.43 cm / 75 "
- Diameter 99.02 cm / 39 "
- Period 1850-1899
- Year 1880
- Country United States
- Provenance Maybrook Mansion, Pennsylvania
- Literature Maybrook designed by renowned Architects Geroge Waston Hewitt and William D Hewitt importing English stonemasons to construct the 35-room mansion that had a gross area of 20,000 square feet. The chandelier attributed to Cornelius & Baker Manufacturers of Lamps, Chandeliers, Gas Fixtures Etc. Manufactories No. 181 Cherry St & Columbia & 5th Avenue St, Philadelphia store, 176 Chestnut Street. William H. Rease, born in Pennsylvania circa 1818, was the most prolific lithographer of advertising prints in Philadelphia during the 1840s and 1850s. This advertisement shows the large Cornelius and Baker industrial building occupying most of the 500 block of Columbia Avenue. Near one of the entries, a man holds a horse hitched to a sulky as an omnibus is about to round the corner. In the foreground, passengers board the Germantown Road North Fifth Street omnibus, as a man on horseback approaches. Christian Cornelius, a Dutch immigrant silversmith, founded his lighting business in 1827, which became Cornelius, Baker, and Company in 1835. By the 1850s, it operated the factory illustrated here, another on Cherry Street, and a store at 176 Chestnut Street. The firm initially made brass lighting fixtures but later also made zinc fixtures and sculptures, some of which were installed in the United States Capitol. The business was succeeded by Cornelius and Sons and Baker, Arnold and Company in 1869. Rease became active in his trade around 1844, and through the 1850s he mainly worked with printers Frederick Kuhl and Wagner & McGuigan in the production of advertising prints known for their portrayals of human details. Although Rease often collaborated with other lithographers, by 1850 he promoted in O'Brien's Business Directory his own establishment at 17 South Fifth Street, above Chestnut Street. In 1855 he relocated his establishment to the northeast corner of Fourth and Chestnut Streets (after a circa 1853-55 partnership with Francis Schell), where in addition to advertising prints he produced certificates, views, maps, and maritime prints.
- Collections The Chandelier from the original collection of the Maybrook mansion in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. The 20,000 square foot Gothic mansion was originally built on its 67 acre property by liquor baron, real estate developer, and art collector Henry Clay Gibson in 1881. The mansion along with its art and antiques collection was passed on from the Gibson family to John W. Merriam, and then finally to his stepson Robert Lockyer.
