Robert Jarvie is widely considered to be the pre-eminent Arts & Crafts candlestick designer. Born in Schenectady, NY in 1865, he moved to Chicago where he was listed as a clerk in the Board of Transportation in 1893. Like many aesthetic-minded people of the day, Jarvie was dissatisfied with ready-made lighting fixtures, and set about teaching himself the crafts of metalsmithing so that he could fashion pieces of his own design. Starting with primitive-looking oil lanterns, Jarvie quickly settled upon the candlestick as a form for his efforts, and, encouraged by the public and reviews of his work in House Beautiful and Stickley's own Craftsman magazine, Jarvie finally abandoned his government career at the age of 40 and pursued his craft full time. Marked by a graceful elegance and sublime simplicity, Jarvie's candlesticks, while based on abstractions and simplifications of floral forms, were given names following the Greek alphabet. Their simplicity made them perfectly at home in Prairie School interiors, although they were widely bought across the country, and a Jarvie candlestick was usually a prized possession. The sticks pictured above are all in original condition and signed, with the exception of the Lambda, which is rarely found with a signature. |
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Commemorative candlestick
for the American Meat Packers Association, 1913 |
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