Brass chandeliers, practical as well as ornamental, evolved in details but remained of the same essential form from the Gothic to Baroque to Georgian periods, through to the mid-nineteenth century when gas-lighting eliminated the use for candles. Few makers are known, but the main centers of manufacture in England were London, Birmingham, Bristol and Cheshire. Large numbers were produced in the Netherlands as well as England, particularly from the seventeenth century onward, in forms difficult to distinguish from their English counterparts. As used in England, they were seen as particularly suitable lighting fixtures for churches and public spaces—including the House of Commons—and many were gifts bearing the name of the donor and the date. The present example was probably made after 1740, as reflected by the method of mounting the candle-arms: rather than issuing from a tray on the stem, they attach to a collar around the large central vase-form knop. For a similar chandelier in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, lacking the flambeau finial, see the example reputedly from the palace of Charles II at Newmarket, currently on loan to the National Horseracing Museum, Newmarket (acc. no. M.290:10-1910).