Byzantine Gold Staff Finial

Flat-section ring with four round holes and attachment fittings for four substantial chains, forming a polycandelon chandelier with multiple candles. 528 grams, 27 cm hanging height



Ex Surrey, UK, collection of a gentleman, 1960-2000s.

In 563 A.D., Paul the Silentiary visited Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and described the wondrous lighting effects, ‘Thus is everything clothed in beauty…no words are sufficient to describe the illumination in the evening: you might say that some nocturnal sun filled the majestic church with light.’ The church was lit by polycandela, an early type of candelabra that held glass oil lamps rather than candles. The lamps were either conical or shaped like round bowls with an elongated stem attached beneath. An effective and very atmospheric source of lighting, polycandela required considerable skill in casting and glasswork. Amidst the burning of incense and the chanting of prayers, the flickering light must have helped to inspire pious devotion. Contemporaries certainly attest to this feeling and among the surviving accounts, that of Arculf, Bishop of Gaul, is particularly affecting. In 670 he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and visited the Church of the Ascension, ‘…to the customary light of the eight lamps…on the night of the feast of the Lord’s Ascension it is usual to add innumerable other lamps; and under the terrible and wondrous gleaming of these, pouring out copiously through the shutters of the windows, all Mount Olivet seems not alone to be illuminated, but even to be on fire, and the whole city, situated on the lower ground nearby, seems to be lit up.’

Drum-shaped body with narrow base, two vertical flanges running from the rim and between them two D-shaped male masks with low discoid caps; later inscribed: '1812 [ΕΤ]ΟΥ IΟΥ[ΛIΟΥ] 27 ІωÁΝΙΣ ΚΟΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΥ ΠΕΤΡΙΚΙ' (July the 27, year 1812 of Iohannes Konstantinos Petrikos). 11.15 kg, 22 cm wide



From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000. From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

Domed sheet-gold pendant with filigree hoops and granulation, four cells each with a gemstone cabochon, lateral loops. 2.68 grams, 19 mm



From a late Japanese specialist collector, 1970-2000s.