A rare set of four Bielefeld silver candlesticks
Square gadrooned bases supporting baluster-form shafts with corresponding decor. The bases engraved with the arms of alliance of the von Closter and von Steinaecker families and a further not fully identified arms of alliance. H 17.2 cm, total weight 1266 g.
Marks of Heinrich Grotendiek, c. 1700.
Patthorst manor, originally a hunting lodge of the Counts of Ravensberg, lies just a few kilometres from Bielefeld near Steinhagen.
The estate became the ancestral seat of the von Closter family as early as the latter half of the fourteenth century. The first inhabitant known to us was Wilhelm von Closter, who received the estate in fief in 1463.
The earlier of the two arms of alliance on these candlesticks was engraved in 1742 on the occasion of the marriage of Ludolph von Closter to Baroness Sophia Wilhelmine Louise von Steinaecker. Their son Caspar Heinrich von Closter, the last male heir of the family, died in 1813 and bequeathed the estate to his niece Therese, who had been married to Baron Karl Christian Heinrich von Eberstein since 1803.
In 1819, the latter inherited the Bustedt estate near Herford from Therese's uncle, Wolf-Ernst von Eller, with the stipulation that he would henceforth name himself in the male von Eller-Eberstein line.
The second arms of alliance appears to have been engraved later on the occasion of the marriage of a Baroness von Eberstein. The her husband's coat of arms of, a red lion facing right on a gold ground, has not yet been reliably identified.
The von Eller-Eberstein family still lives in Patthorst Castle and manages the surrounding forests.
Provenance
Former in a private collection, Bielefeld; from an old Westphalian collection.
Literature
One piece illus. in Wolfgang Scheffler, Goldschmiede Rheinland-Westfalens, Berlin 1973, illus. 66.