A matched pair of early 17th-century Italian brass pricket candlesticks

Each candlestick is of finely cast brass, with a leafy baluster stem rising above a stepped and moulded square plinth, supported on turned ball feet. The wide drip pans with tall integral prickets were intended to secure substantial wax candles, providing both illumination and symbolic light in a liturgical setting.
The design combines the late Renaissance vocabulary of classical architectural forms with the emerging Baroque taste for heightened monumentality. The leafy knop recalls vegetal ornament derived from antiquity, while the bold plinth and ball feet reflect contemporary Italian ecclesiastical furnishings.