Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-02-23
A GREAT CANDLE REVIVAL
THE WAX TAPER Is REsUMING ITS
oLD-TIME SUPREMACY.
The Light Esteemed Far Above Gas
OIL or Electricity-Proft for
Candlestick Makers.
Written for The Evening Star.

Written for The Evening Star.
The Jack who can jump over the new art
candlestick must be light-footed and
sinewy person, for brass, bronze and silver
sticks. measuring from three to seven feet
in height, are no longer counted among the
rare and expensive furnishings for the
handsome drawing and dining rooms. The
great ecclesiastical candelabrum gave the
ambitious house decorator his first inspra-
ton for this. and so potent is the law of
fashion. now governing the house beauti-
full. that candle light is esteemed far above
the clearer and more powerful gas, oil or
electric light illumination. This is, of
course, where the candle and candlestick
makers score heavily and profitably, and
to meet the demand for wax. parafiine and
tallow tapers. and for brass, crystal,
bronze. silver and copper sticks, their skill
and ingenuity is taxed, with the richest re-
suits.
In the shops where antiques are sold
there is hardly pretense any longer MAIN
tanned of keeping in stock genuine metal
sticks that have been reft from cathedrals,
synagogues or medieval houses. That sup
ply is exhausted but the modern imitator
of classic forms lives nobly up to his task
of supplying the active need for these
wares. A beautiful pair of hand-beaten
brass copper sticks from the studio of a
reputable modern metal worker fetch as
high price as a genuine antique, and Just
now there is no small amount of enthu-
siaSm demonstrated over single, massive
square sticks, for the adornment OF newell
posts, wrought by one American artist. n
fine specimen he has recently completed
for a seaside villa shows the rising sun
and an ancient caraVal in high relief on one
of its sides; and this handsome column.
fitted to a black oak newell post, holds a
tallow taper as big as mans wrist and
three feet tall.
he hn iplot In ell
yer a pair of mantel shelf sticks In the
Aubrey Beardsey style that seem to have
taken the house decorators heart by storm.
Two tall and slender girls, In close, 'linging
draperies of silver, let fall about their mar
row ivory faces straight, mermaid locks,
also of silver The streaming tresses float
outward, turn up at the ends, and in these
ends sockets for candles are set.
Art silver, combined with ivory, Is an
arrangement eXtravagantly admired in ar
tistic candle manufacture, especially when
design is used that reveals the beauty of
the feminine form divine: and enameled
pewter, nodded in these shapes, carries no
small amount of commercial weight with it.
AT dinner parties this season it has been
the fashion to use ten and twelve-branch
candelabra without any shades. When
Mr.. William C. Whitney gave dinner of
twenty-four covers in his great 9Th avenue
house last month his dining room was light
ed by 40 wax candles, and on the table
every socket of the lofty, many-branched
achieved by the use of split tapers, or
branched candles, as they are sometimes
called. The branched candles have a main
trunk that fits in the sticks socket. but a
few inches up the trunk divides at right
angles into two, three or even five tall and
separate tapers. These numberess wax
fed flames burned unshaded and the guests
were very much astonished at the imported
Portuguese candles, that are not only
charmngly colored, very like Neapolitan
ice cream. and burning with a flame tinted
to match the red, yellow or blue wax.
Since antique or new art sticks have re-
vived the use of candles. the dealers in
toilet supplies have imported small aro-
matte boudoir candles from France. The
colors of the tapers signify the special
aroma given out in the burning, and, when
one or two flame softly the toilet Is in
progress, a most rare and delicious fra
GRANGE will be impaired to the hair and
garments of the person who dresses in their
neghborhood. 1t almost goes without say
ing that the aromatic candles belong in
sticks that at once ornamental and in
harmony with the wax lights they hold
The Glove tapers fit. for example in slim
and exquisite kaiSerin sticks designed to
show the carnation plant form, and with
wild clematis and jessamine the vine and
flower are repeated in the modelling of their
delicate and graceful sticks.