A Rare Prussian Cast Iron Bacchus Herm Candlestick, Early 19th Century

A Rare Early 19th Century Prussian Cast Iron Bacchus Herm Candlestick by Königlich-Preußische Sayner Hütte (Royal Prussian Sayn Foundry), circa 1820–1840. Why we like it Iron is a difficult material to cast well. It pours thick and cools quickly, and thin sections tend to fail. Most decorative ironwork shows it — soft edges, filled-in detail, a general approximation of the model. The Prussian royal foundries were the exception, and this candlestick shows why. The arms are cast free of the shaft, pierced right through. At that thickness, in iron, a casting usually breaks or doesn’t fill. Here it did. The beard keeps its separate curls and the grapes are individually defined. Only three Royal foundries could achieve this level of details and finish: Berlin, Gleiwitz and Sayn. These foundries were state enterprises with something to prove, competing against French bronze and English metalwork, and they set out to show that iron could come out of the mould with detail a bronze founder would expect to chase in afterwards at the bench. This model was produced at all three. It appears in the Sayner Hütte’s own pattern book, Saynerhütten Kunstgußwaaren-Abbildungen, among the Tafelleuchter; in the Gleiwitz Preis-Courant, illustrated there in two variants, one taking a single socket and one a two-branch fitting; and a pair of them stands on the central table in the cast iron plaque showing the interior of the Berlin foundry’s sales warehouse (Bartel, cat. nos. 432–434). Shared model stock across the three works was standard practice, which is why the great majority of surviving Prussian iron cannot be assigned to a foundry at all. We are fortunate to have acquired the signed example. The underside of the foot carries the raised mark S.H., identifying the Sayner Hütte. Sayn passed to Prussia on 1 July 1815 following the Congress of Vienna and remained in state hands until Alfred Krupp bought the works in 1865, which brackets the casting within those fifty years. The commercial viability of this particular design places it firmly around 1820-25 and no later than 1840. The Rheinisches Eisenkunstguss-Museum at Sayn records the identical mark, in the identical position, on a comparable candlestick in its collection (F-REM 001). Dimensions Width: 12 cm / 4.75” Depth: 12 cm / 4.75” Height: 32 cm / 12.5” Condition Ready for placement and immediate use. Ormolu sconce is a later replacement.