PERRY & CO, NEW BOND ST, LONDON (1756-1935) - Receive artist alerts » - More items from this artist »

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Cut-Crystal

220.00cm high    (  86.61 inches high)

120.00cm ( 47.24 inches)

The Richard Shuttleworth Charitable Trust, Old Warden Park, Near Biggleswade, Bedfordshire.

The Old Warden Estate in Bedfordshire was acquired in 1872 by Joseph Shuttleworth who commissioned the architect Henry Clutton (1819-1913) to design a house based on Gawthorpe Hall in Lancashire, the home of Lord Shuttleworth. The building was carried out by the London firm of Cubitts, and Gillows of Lancaster supplied the majority of the furnishings.

Martine Mortimer, 'The English Glass Chandelier', Antique Collectors Club, 2000.
Ralph Fastnedge, 'Regency Furniture', Country Life ltd., 1965

An Exceptional and Large Pair of George III Style Cut-Crystal Twenty-Four Light Chandeliers by Perry & Co.

This magnificent pair of chandeliers have tiered and faceted scroll branches issuing stellar cut pans and nozzles from lobed wells and baluster vase shaped columns, hung with faceted pendants and graduated beads.

The chandeliers were acquired by Joseph Shuttleworth, for his new house Old Warden Park, Bedfordshire, from the firm of Burt Escaré and Perry & Co. at the end of the nineteenth century.

William Perry is first recorded in partnership with William Collins at 227 Strand, and then he joined William Parker, as Parker and Perry, from 1803. William Parker was the leading chandelier maker of the late eighteenth century, supplying to all the most fashionable households, and to royalty as far afield as the Emperor of China. Between 1783 and 1786 alone, Parker had supplied chandeliers costing over £2,500 to the Prince of Wales for his London residence, Carlton House.

Parker and Perry together were commissioned for a fifty-six light Chandelier for the Crimson Drawing Room in Carlton House at a cost of over £1000. It was completed in 1808 and was fourteen feet high and six feet six inches in diameter. Pyne, whose great work on the Royal Palaces was published in 1819, considered this great chandelier to be one of the finest in Europe. Many of Parker and Perry's chandeliers were removed at the dismantling of Carlton House, and placed in Buckingham Palace where they still remain.

William Perry went on to establish himself at 72 New Bond Street in 1817 as Glass Manufacturer to the Prince Regent (possibly wresting the appointment from Parker), and in 1822 he was joined by his nephew. In 1833 the company became George Perry & Co. They were to become one of the most prolific manufacturers of their time, only competing with F. & C. Osler throughout the nineteenth century.

Perry & Co. supplied the nine 'inverted parasol' chandeliers in the Music Room of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, for the Prince Regent, at a cost of £4,290.12s. On the sale of the Royal Pavilion to the commissioners of Brighton in 1850 they were removed and taken to London. All but four, which remain in Buckingham Palace, were returned to the Pavilion in 1864.

Perry & Co had a varied output of lighting fittings, all using the highest quality drops, and no imported imitations.

The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a book of sketches of 'classic' Perry chandeliers from the 1860's and 1870's, which is frequently annotated with the names of those who had ordered them, and the dates of the orders.