Chelsea Porcelain candlestick with Leda and the Swan

An image of Mythological candlestick. Candlestick with Leda and the Swan accompanied by Cupid. Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory, England, London. The concave underside is unglazed and has a large circular central ventilation hole. The roughly oval base is supported on four double scroll feet. The top of the front and sides are covered with applied flowers and leaves. At the back there is a tall tree with bocage of green leaves and clusters of small white flowers with blue centres. At the top it has a forward projection with a hole to take a candle socket. Leda sits in front of the tree with the swan standing close to her on the viewer's left, and Cupid standing on the right, stretching across to place his right hand on her left knee. Soft-paste porcelain, slip cast, with hand-modelled details, lead-glazed, and painted in greyish-blue, green, yellow, flesh pink, pink, puce, orange-red, pale grey, and black enamels, and gilt. Height, whole, 25.7 cm, width, across scroll feet, 16.2 cm, circa 1760-1770 (the date of manufacture may be around 1765). Rococo. Gold anchor period (1759-1769).

Terms of use

These images are provided for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND). To license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who will discuss fees, terms and waivers.

Download this image

Creative commons explained - what it means, how you can use our's and other people's content.

Mythological candlestick. Candlestick with Leda and the Swan accompanied by Cupid. Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory, England, London. The concave underside is unglazed and has a large circular central ventilation hole. The roughly oval base is supported on four double scroll feet. The top of the front and sides are covered with applied flowers and leaves. At the back there is a tall tree with bocage of green leaves and clusters of small white flowers with blue centres. At the top it has a forward projection with a hole to take a candle socket. Leda sits in front of the tree with the swan standing close to her on the viewer's left, and Cupid standing on the right, stretching across to place his right hand on her left knee. Soft-paste porcelain, slip cast, with hand-modelled details, lead-glazed, and painted in greyish-blue, green, yellow, flesh pink, pink, puce, orange-red, pale grey, and black enamels, and gilt. Height, whole, 25.7 cm, width, across scroll feet, 16.2 cm, circa 1760-1770 (the date of manufacture may be around 1765). Rococo. Gold anchor period (1759-1769).

Image data

Accession Number: C.32-1932
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/27.0
Focal length: 80
Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
Photographer name: Amy Jugg
Image height: 1025 pixels
Image width: 769 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)
Filesize: 464.29kB
Exposure time: 1/60
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 27/1
Captured: 2010:11:07 00:50:59

Key words

18th Century birds candle holder candlesticks ceramics Chelsea Porcelain Factory Cupid Early Rococo enamel enamelled female figure Fitz_AA floral flowers gilded gilding glazed lead-glazed Leda mythological mythological candlesticks mythology Rococo swans

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024)
            "Chelsea Porcelain candlestick with Leda and the Swan "
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-214172 Accessed: 2024-11-02 18:31:25

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-214172
            |title=Chelsea Porcelain candlestick with Leda and the Swan 
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-02 18:31:25|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/images/media-214172

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa40/C_32_1932_1_201011_amt49_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Candlestick with Leda and the Swan accompanied by Cupid"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Chelsea Porcelain candlestick with Leda and the Swan </figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>