27.10.2024

Exhibit in detail. Paired candlesticks for one candle ‘Lamplighters’

Today, on the Day of a Lamplighter, our traditional column ‘Exhibit in Details’ features the history of the holiday and presents the exhibits stored in the museum “Collection” – the paired candlesticks ‘The Lamplighters’. The candlesticks were created by Eugene Naps in 1890-1900s.

The paired candlesticks for one candle are cast in patinated bronze. Each is made in the form of a cabinet sculpture depicting a city kerosene lantern. A figure of a lamplighter in an apron standing on a ladder is attached to the supporting bracket. One composition features a lamplighter looking like a craftsman in a jacket with pockets, peak cap and boots, with an oilcan in his hands, filling the lantern with kerosene; the other one – a yard-keeper, wearing a fur hat, felt boots and a short fur coat, cleaning the lantern glass with a rag. The sculptures are mounted on a stepped profiled plinth of rectangular shape with cut corners and a relief surface imitating a cobblestone pavement with a kerb and wooden bollard.

History
In 1698, 8 lanterns were installed in Moscow near the tsar's palace. Oil lanterns shone dimly, sometimes not burning at all, and they were extinguished early.
On November 27, 1730 the Senate issued a decree ‘On making glass lanterns in Moscow for lighting in winter time’, which laid the foundation for permanent street lighting. Moscow met the New year 1731 with street lighting. This important innovation was one of those that changed the image of Moscow as a medieval city. It was laid down in the regulations that the police chancellery had to put glass lanterns at a distance of 20 meters one from another on major streets – in the Kremlin, China-town, in White and Earthenware towns, in the German Quarter (Kukuy Quarter), according to the established samples.
The treasury provided money for those devices, but it was up to the residents to light the lanterns and keep them in good working order.
By 1776, 600 lanterns were installed in the capital, and by the end of the 18th century their total number exceeded six thousand. Most of them were mounted on poles, the rest were nailed to the walls of houses. The lanterns were wicks with hemp oil, lit from September to May.

The first electric lanterns shone only in 1880. Thus, the square around the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was illuminated with arc lamps in honor of the Holy Coronation of Alexander III (1883). After such lavish festivities, many Muscovites began to petition the governor-general to install electric lighting in their houses. But this became possible only 30 years later, when the first central power station was opened on the Raushskaya Embankment.

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