Set of Three Dutch Eight Branch Brass Chandeliers
Dutch, dated 1656
One of a set of three Dutch brass chandeliers, each struck ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’, each having a shaft with brass hanging ring on acorn knop, a strongly accented inverted baluster below, the slender graceful arms pegged into an annular ring, large ball below. Inscribed ‘EEV’ (for Elias Eliasz van Vliet jr. (1643-1672), and dated ‘1656’. One with each branch struck ‘A’, numbered 1-8, corresponding to those on the ring, the others ‘B’ and ‘C’.
Height 42" (1,07m).
Diameter (to outside of drip pans) 49" (1,24m).
Elias Eliasz van Vliet Jr. (1643-1672) continued the workshop of his father Elias Eliasz van Vliet the Elder (c. 1609-1652). The workshop was on the Nieuwendijk, Amsterdam and was called In de Gecroonde Kerck-kroon. The first known mention of it is in 1627. Van Vliet the Elder was one of the few brass-founders who stamped his work. Prior to 1642 he used the initials ‘EE’, after that date adding the initial ‘V’. Elias Eliasz Jr. continued using the same initials, ‘EEV’, throughout his life.
The van Vliets are known to have made chandeliers for churches throughout the Dutch Republic and beyond. There is a record of their having supplied a church in Norway with three chandeliers, for example. In The Netherlands there are chandeliers from their workshop in Blokzijl, Deventer, Vlissingen and Zwolle, and the Amsterdam Historical Museum has two chandeliers stamped ‘EEV’, one dated 1642, the other 1664.
