Dutch Renaissance candelabra with two candleholders, attributed to Elias Eliassen van Vliet, Amsterdam

Brass candlestick with two arms. The foot with auricular motifs is riveted to the trunk. The two-armed turner with accompanying grease traps and candle holders.
This brass candlestick can be properly attributed to the braziers Elias Eliassen van Vliet from Amsterdam and must have been made around 1650.
Four of these candelabras are known, one of which is marked EEV; one incomplete in the Rijksmuseum collection, one in the Arnhem Openluchtmuseum, the marked one in the Ritman collection, and this Candelabra. All have the characteristic tripod with auricular motifs as a foot and a two-armed swivel. The example in Arnhem has a third candle holder on the trunk. The grease traps and candle holders of this example are however of later date.

The braziers Elias Eliassen, father and son, worked in Amsterdam. In 1627, a young Yleke Ylekess from Leeuwarden made a comparison for notary J. F. Bruyningh in Amsterdam. He stated that he was a brazier but that his employment contract in Groningen had been terminated due to too little work. He now had a job in Amsterdam. In 1630 he married Aaltie Arens, he then lived in Nicolaasstraat. He had meanwhile changed his name to Eelke Eelkes. In 1634 his son Ely was born. Father Eelke is then called Ely Eelijs. That he is the same person is evident from the name of the mother: Aaltje Arends.
On May 11, 1641, he bought a building on Nieuwendijk, traditionally known as 'De Spanseerder', for the sum of NLG 7,500. The purchase deed shows that he had now completely adapted his name to the Dutch idiom, as he was referred to as Elias Eliassen, brazier. In 1652 Father Eliassen was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk. His son died in 1672.

Most copperwork from this period is not marked. Elias Eliasz. however sometimes signed and dated some pieces of his work. At first, he used the monogram EE and from 1642 EEV, where the V stood for his family name; Vliet. Based on this monogram, various crowns and baptismal arches can be attributed to him. The signed candlestick in the Ritman collection shows so many similarities to our example in the base and construction that it can be safely said that this candelabra was also created in the workshop of the braziers Elias Eliassen van Vliet.

Literature:
34e Kunst en antiekbeurs ’s-Hertogenbosch 2000, p. 56
O. ter Kuile, Koper & Brons, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 1986, p. no. 131
M. Plettenburg, Licht in huis: kienspaan - kaars - olielamp, Arnhem 1968, p. 10, afb 17.
B. Dubbe, Het Amsterdamse geelgietersambacht in de 17de eeuw: Enige meesters, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek (NKJ) 31 (1980), pp. 137-153