Gloucester Candlestick

The candlestick was gilded by fire-gilding, with elements in niellod silver added, engraving, and tiny dark glass eyes inset on some of the figures.

[1] The candlestick is densely decorated with an openwork composition of human figures, apes and fabulous beasts interspersed between thick intertwined shoots of foliage.

This type of decoration was common to northern European art of this date but the style here is closely related to contemporary English illuminated manuscripts, indicating that, despite German influences, this piece was made in England, possibly in Canterbury, or by a craftsman who travelled to perform commissions.

[3] The decoration has been interpreted as a struggle between the forces of good and evil, and has speech and silence as a theme, with some of the figures placing hands over the mouths of others.

[4] An inscription round the outside of the drip pan reads "+ lvcis.on[us] virtvtis opvs doctrina refvlgens / predicat vt vicio non tenebretvr homo" ("This flood of light, this work of virtue, bright with holy doctrine instructs us, so that Man shall not be benighted in vice"), and some figures are crawling up through the decoration, towards the light, while others are making away from it downwards.