Antique Candelabra between £0 and £0
A candelabrum is a standing candle holder with two or more branches, made for altar and table lighting and, from the 17th century on, for brighter domestic rooms.
What Are Antique Candelabra?
Pairs are the rule. Of 629 titles on Sellingantiques, 398 say "pair", with a further handful describing sets of three or four. Symmetry is the reason: two matching pieces on a mantel, a table or a sideboard. Singles are the minority, and a set of four or a garniture sits among the higher-priced entries.
The version you're most likely to meet is a French 19th-century table pair in gilt bronze or ormolu. French appears in 206 titles, bronze in 186, ormolu in 108. Louis XVI, Empire, Charles X, Restauration and Napoléon III all recur as style names. Three branches is the commonest stated count.
Behind that sits a large body of English brass, including Victorian domestic pairs, rise-and-fall examples and church altar candelabra, plus silver and silver-plated work such as Old Sheffield Plate. Dealers also file related forms under this heading: wall sconces and wall lights, girandoles and lustre candlesticks, candelabra converted to table lamps, and a few chandeliers. Wall-mounted pieces are a small part of the archive but a bigger part of current stock.
Dating is often broad. Only 305 listings carry a clean year, and 202 are filed simply as 19th Century, with Victorian used the same loose way. Where decades are given they cluster from the 1860s to the 1900s, and there's a real 20th-century tail through the 1920s and 1930s. Eighteenth-century and earlier pieces exist but are scarce, among them a brass Tenebrae Easter candelabrum bearing the date 1682.
What Sets Them Apart
Material does most of the work. Gilt bronze and ormolu hold the upper range, and patinated bronze paired with gilt parts belongs there too. Brass and silver plate cluster lower, and the bottom of the range is occupied by single brass wall brackets and small plated candle lamps.
After metal, it's modelling and mounts. Sculptural figures push a pair upward: cherubs and putti, maidens, Nike, Hercules, and carved Venetian blackamoor stands. So does the animal work, which runs from elephants and stags to a stork with a snake, a winged dragon, monkeys and gilded fish. Marble bases in sienna, verde antico or giallo antico, and onyx, malachite or porphyry mounts, lift a piece as well.
Scale and count follow the same line. Twin-light table pairs sit low; large, floor-standing and torchère forms sit high, and branch numbers run up through nine, ten and twelve to a sixteen-light chandelier. Large French figural work in gilt and patinated bronze holds the very top.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for candelabra between £0 and £0, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
Branch counts on Sellingantiques run from twin-light up to a sixteen-light chandelier, with nine, ten and twelve-arm examples each appearing once.
The Antique Candelabra between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Ormolu
- Gilded bronze or brass, and the single commonest quality word in these titles. Used loosely by many dealers for any gilt-metal mount.
- Gilt bronze
- Bronze with a gold surface, used interchangeably with ormolu across the category. Appears in 62 titles in its own right.
- Branch, arm or light
- The candle-bearing extensions, counted three ways depending on the dealer. Three, four, five, six, seven, nine, ten, twelve and sixteen all appear.
- Sconce
- A wall-mounted candle holder. Thirteen titles use the word, and 38 more say simply wall.
- Girandole
- A branched candle holder, often hung with cut-glass drops. Spelling wanders: girandole and girondelle both turn up.
- Rise and fall
- An adjustable-height mechanism, recurring on Victorian brass examples.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are candelabra nearly always sold in pairs?
Pairs were how they were used. Two matching pieces flanking a mirror, a clock or the centre of a table gave the symmetry that 18th and 19th-century interiors were arranged around.
The archive follows suit: 398 of 629 titles say pair, and singles are the exception. Sets of three and four appear occasionally, and a garniture sits among the dearer entries.
What does ormolu actually mean on these listings?
Gilded bronze or brass. It's the commonest quality word in the category, appearing in 108 titles.
Many dealers use ormolu and gilt bronze to mean the same thing, and both cluster on French work. Patinated bronze, dark or chemically coloured, often turns up combined with gilt parts on the same piece.
How many branches do they usually have?
Three is the commonest stated count in the titles here.
Beyond that the range is wide. Twin-light pairs sit at the small end, and counts run through four, five, six and seven up to nine, ten and twelve-arm examples, each appearing once, with a sixteen-light chandelier at the top.
Are figural candelabra a separate thing?
They're a visible minority within the category, and they concentrate at the top of the range. Cherubs and blackamoors are the two recurring types.
The animal supports are broader than you'd expect. Elephants, an owl, a stork with a snake, a greyhound, whippets, a parrot, a winged dragon, monkeys, gilded fish, stags and a merman all appear.
Which countries do these come from?
France dominates, named in 206 titles, followed by English brass and plate. Italian and Venetian work accounts for much of the carved figural end.
Other origins are thin on the ground: one Belgian zinc planter form, one Flemish gothic chandelier, one Scandinavian pair, one Spanish gilded pair, and a Judaica Sabbath candelabrum placed at about 1750.
How often do candelabra come up for sale?
Around 71 listings reach Sellingantiques in a year, spread across 179 dealers. The average dealer has handled well under one.
So the category turns over steadily rather than in volume, and the mix shifts. Wall sconces and wall lights, a small slice of the archive, make up a larger share of current stock.