Penrose Antiques

Description

We have for sale a piece of Liverpool history and a well traveled survivor of the age of the great ocean liners, a Bishop and Stonier porcelain candlestick manufactured in around 1900.

The candlestick is in the form of a Corinthian column decorated in turquoise and gilt on a white ground and carrying the BISTO Bishop and Stonier mark to inside of the base. The candlstick was most probably part of a large order of candlesticks destined designed to adorn and compliment a dining room aboard an ocean liner of the day.

Bishop and Stonier was a company established in 1851 by William Livesley, Edwin Powell and Fredrick Bishop under the name of Livesley Powell & Co. They exported ceramics. By 1891 William Liversley had retired and Bishop and Powel formed a partnership with John Stonier who was a glass and ceramics merchant from Liverpool. Together they formed the company BISTO (Bishop and stonier) which used the loge BISTO beneath the Wand of Caduceus and the motto "The sun never sets on BISTO". This motto implied that at any one time the sun would be shining on BISTO ware on an ocean liner somewhere in the world. This was very appropriate, seeing as by this time Bisto had built up a significant trade in fitting out the great ocean liners of the day. For example, it was BISTO (Bishop and Stonier) that supplied the White Star Line with the ceramics used on ships such as the Titanic.

The candlestick is 10 inches (25,4) cm high and is in a good to very good antique condition.