Pair of Square-Column Candlesticks

A matched pair of tall candlesticks built as square columns, each rising from a stepped base with flat geometric buttresses. The forms are hand-worked throughout, and their monumentality comes from proportion and plane rather than ornament: no repoussé, no applied decoration, only the reflective geometry of the silver.

The pair is published in Gobi Stromberg, Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda (UCLA Fowler Museum, 2008), p. 164, fig. 234, which supplies the authoritative description: .925 silver, height 51 cm, marked with the Antonio crown and eagle 17.

The Antonio crown mark is in use from 1953, which sets the earliest possible date. The working range of about 1955-1960 given in the Date field is inferred from the mark and from the scale of Pineda's hollowware production in those years; it should be read as inferred rather than documented.

According to Pineda, three pairs of these candlesticks were made, and he said they were among his personal favorites. This pair previously were held at the Museo Belber in Oaxaca and now reside in an important private collection in Denver.