OLD ARGENTINE SILVERWARE

​​Pair of candlesticks. Northwest Argentina (Salta?). Third quarter of the XIX century.

Singular design with the representation of a character standing on the beam, on whose head the support of the candle holder rests, smooth, cylindrical and with a flat washer, with scalloped edges, decorated with a rich chiselling work that includes a border, petals and a branch of laurels that run along its entire perimeter from the outside to the inside. The base is flat, smooth and with its prominent edge, from which the pedestal rises in a balustrade shape on which the young man who acts as a pole stands. Measures. Height: 23 cm. Base diameter: 9.7 cm. Weight (of both): 820 gr. Former Alfredo González Garaño collection.

Very interesting piece of Argentine civil silverware, we understand that it was made by a goldsmith from northwestern Argentina, where it is known, there were important workshops working for the local society since the time of the Marquesado del Valle de Tojo -a wide territory that included the current San Antonio de los Cobres, Santa Victoria, Yavi, the highlands of Jujuy and reached as far as Tarija-, whose Marquis Fernando Campero had several silversmiths working for himself and his family. Those colonial hands continued their work in republican times, moving away from the old designs in vogue in colonial times. (1)

Note:

1. Juan Isidro Quesada: Silver in Argentine history (second part). Our Platería Magazine, Buenos Aires, No. 8, Nov. of 1997, p. 20-23.

(*): According to law 25,339, this lot will receive the application of the sumptuary tax.