Pair of papier-mâché candlesticks, moulded and japanned, from Spiers & Son. English, ca. 1840-60.

The candlesticks are japanned black but undecorated. Each has a square, tapering column, moulded rectangular base and flat square top, fitted with a removeable brass drip pan. The drip pans are circular and have a rim, flat bottom and straight sides. In the centre of the underside of each base, a metal screw and washer is visible which is presumably the end of a metal fitting running up inside the column.

Given by Miss G.B. Taylor

The pair of candlesticks were given to the Museum by Miss G.B. Taylor. She said that her father, who had started work in the counting house of Spiers & Son, Oxford, at an early age and died in 1949, aged 90, had always described the candlesticks as made by this firm.

The firm's advertising emphasized the availability of decoration painted to order and that visitors were welcomed in the painting room on the premises. This pair of candlesticks may be examples of blanks, kept in the shop for such potential orders. They may have been supplied by one of the Birmingham manufacturers of papier-mâché, such as Alsager and Neville, who were said to have produced such blanks for Spiers & Son.

Spiers & Son was established at 102 High Street, Oxford, by Richard James Spiers (1806-1877) in 1834 as a stationery and fancy goods shop and the business expanded subsequently to include premises at No. 103. Spiers & Son specialised in a wide range of objects made of papier-mâché, ranging from chairs, tables and screens, to pen trays, letter racks, and cigar cases, many articles decorated with views of Oxford. The shop frontage was illustrated in The Adventures of Mr Verdant Green by Cuthbert Bede, the pseudonym of Edward Bradley. This description of the adventures of a new Oxford undergraduate, published in 1853, included details of special purchases for family gifts, with decoration painted to order, a speciality of Spiers & Son.

Spiers & Son exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851, being awarded an Honourable Mention by the Jurors for their exhibits which included an extensive display in a glass case. They also exhibited in New York in 1853, winning a Prize Medal, and were awarded an Honourable Mention at the Paris Universelle Exhibition in 1855. By 1871 the firm was managed by R.J. Spiers's two sons. Although he petitioned for bankruptcy in 1872, the firm exhibited at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1878. Spiers & Son finally closed in 1890.

These candlesticks are examples of undecorated blanks which could be painted to order. Shops, like Spiers & Son, Oxford, which specialised in a wide range of furniture and smaller domestic objects made of papier-mâché, offered customers the opportunity to choose their own decorative themes or designs. The shop premises included the attraction of a painting workshop where a stock of designs and a vast range of blanks, supplied by manufacturers of papier-mâché in the West Midlands, were available for personalized orders. The father of the donor of these candlesticks worked for Spiers & Son as a young man and may have acquired them when the firm closed down in 1890.

W.42:A-C-1970