Cellar Candlesticks, Propeller. Normandy. 19th Century.

Duo of “spiral” candlesticks, in wrought iron, made of a helically wrought iron ribbon, stuck in a turned wooden base. Complete with their hook and their flat button socket. They are stamped with a manufacturer's mark: LNA & LM, unidentified but often encountered on this type of object. Origin: NORMANDY. Height: 16.6 and 22 cm. Diameter: 8.5 and 10.8 cm. Period: 19th century. Very good condition. Free shipping by COLISSIMO for mainland France. Like wine merchant's bobêchons, the hook made it possible to position the candlestick on the edge of a barrel or vat. So for their use in outbuildings, storerooms or cellars, they are incorrectly called “cellar rats” by many poorly documented neophytes. Since according to A. CAMUS: “badly naming things adds to the misfortunes of the world”, and in order to put an end to this linguistic confusion, it seems necessary to us to recall the precise definition of “cellar rat” that all the good works and dictionaries: Henry HAVARD - Dictionary of furnishings and decoration 1878: Cellar rat: “A sort of small, long candle rolled up on itself, which we use when we want to go down into dark places and especially in the cellar. Pierre LAROUSSE - Great universal dictionary 1865: Cellar rat: “A sort of thin candle, rolled on itself, which is used for lighting in cellars”. LAROUSSE universal 1923: Cellar rat: “Long and thin cotton wick, covered with wax and folded on itself, used for lighting in cellars”. Raymond LECOQ - Objects of domestic life 1971: “to hold a very thin candle, rolled up on itself, which was called cellar rat, rat tail, wax bar or candle bar, we used containers in the lid of which passed the end of the cellar rat which was unrolled as it burned. Around 1930, these cellar rats were still sold in cylindrical cardboard boxes with a pierced lid for the cord to pass through. To confirm our demonstration, we cannot resist the temptation to call on one of our most illustrious writers for help: in a passage from “Les Misérables”, Victor HUGO evokes in PARIS in the 1830s the meeting of GAVROCHE with two young boys abandoned. He takes them under his protection and takes them to his clandestine refuge located at Place de la BASTILLE, and which is none other than the life-size model, in framework and plaster, of a monumental elephant, a project planned by NAPOLEON, but abandoned : “GAVROCHE had just lit one of those pieces of string dipped in resin called a cellar rat, which smoked more than it lit.” This last detail lets us suppose that there could be several qualities of cellar rats depending on the nature of the wick: cotton, hemp, elderberry pith, flax and the composition of the fuel: tallow, wax, resin, pitch, paraffin. If necessary, to finish convincing the skeptics, let's return to our duo of candlesticks, by examining the catalog of the Normandy locksmith and hardware factory BERTOUT-DUPONT in CHANU around 1890. On page 44, reference 728, It features a “spiral candlestick, varnished wooden base” available in 4 sizes and sold from 42 to 55 francs per hundred! To end the controversy, in this catalog, there is no mention of a “cellar rat”, but rather of a “spiral candlestick”, which is not the case.