Pair of Renaissance Brass Pricket Candlesticks

An exceptionally fine and well-preserved pair of late Renaissance brass pricket candlesticks, each with a turned and cast baluster stem rising from a sharply moulded octagonal base supported on bold paw feet, and surmounted by a broad drip pan with an integral pricket. The form combines architectural restraint with sculptural presence, characteristic of the Southern Netherlandish and Northern Italian metalworking traditions of the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
The profile of the shaft—with alternating knops and compressed balusters—reflects the growing Mannerist taste for elegant vertical proportion, while the heavy, sharply faceted bases recall the Flemish liturgical brasswork of Antwerp and Mechelen, as well as related North Italian altar prickets produced in Milan and Bologna for both ecclesiastical and domestic settings.