Small gilded III Centenario Lamp

The chandeliers from La Granja those from the time of Carlos III, with a central iron bar to which the bowls are secured with screws and nuts. These nuts can be mirrored or decorated with gold leaf to match the colour of the bowl. Lightly folded “gallonado” glass bulbs, assembled on the iron bar and organised in a row, cover the nuts.

One of the other fundamental components of the chandeliers are the arms of lights, accompanied by generally solid crooks and scrolls with sinuous forms.

The bowls support the weight of the arms and crooks, so they much be firmly screwed to the central bar; all the components depend on their structural integrity. Bowls were originally made of wood but were substituted with aluminium covered in a second canopy of colourless glass. Inside the glass canopy, and in accordance with the design of original models, mirroring or gold leaf is applied. The chains are strung together with nickel silver or tin of different thicknesses, depending on their size and weight.

The chains used during the reign of Carlos III were generally very large, and pendalogues, floral buds like bells, pears, fleur de lis and fig leaves predominated. They were normally colourless, but they were also made in green, red, ruby, blue and even in milky white or with threads filled with air.