Ansonia Pair of Silver 5-Light Candelabra from Aesthetic Movement 19th Century

Pair of Ansonia silver-plated 5-light candelabra in a style reminiscent of the Aesthetic Movement and from the 19th century. They measure 20'' in height by 11 1/2'' from arm to arm and appear to be unmarked. 

The Ansonia Clock Company was a clock manufacturing business founded in Ansonia, Connecticut, in 1851, as a subsidiary of the Ansonia Brass Company by Phelps and two Bristol, Connecticut, clockmakers, Theodore Terry and Franklin C. Andrews. Terry & Andrews were the largest clock manufacturers in Bristol, with more than 50 employees using 58 tons of brass in the production of about 25,000 clocks in 1849. The company has produced hundreds of different clock models, including Gingerbread, Porcelain, and Crystal Regulator styles. Ansonia clocks were exhibited at the U.S. Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. 

In 1877 the clock company purchased a factory in New York and moved most of its production there after being spun off from the brass company. Henry J. Davies of Brooklyn, himself a clockmaker, inventor and case designer, joined the newly reconstituted company as one of its founders. As President, he is thought to have been largely responsible for the figurine clocks, swing clocks and other unusual and desirable novelties for which the Ansonia firm became known.

Thomas Edison visited the factory in 1878 to experiment combining clocks with his newly developed phonograph.

By 1879, a second factory was opened in Brooklyn, New York and by June 1880 employed 360 workers, while the Connecticut factory continued producing clocks as well with a workforce of 100 men and 25 women. 

The New York factory burnt down in 1880 - the loss was reported to be $750,000 with only $395,000 insured.

The company rebuilt the factory on the same site, and reopened the expanded factory in 1881, with capacity to exceed that of the Connecticut factory, which closed completely in 1883. By 1886, the company had sales offices in New York, Chicago and London, and more than 225 different clock models were being manufactured. The prosperous and debt-free Ansonia Clock Company reported having an inventory worth $600,000 and receivables valued at $250,000. In 1904, Ansonia added non-jeweled watches to their line and produced an estimated ten million of these by 1929.

In 1899, Phelps's grandson William Earle Dodge Stokes commissioned architect Paul E. Duboy to build the "greatest and grandest hotel in Manhattan, New York." New York's first air-conditioned building, the Ansonia Hotel still stands at 2107 Broadway, albeit as a condominium apartment building.

In early 1914, just before World War I, Ansonia was producing 440 different models. However, the novelty clock became subject to fierce competition. As Ansonia's strongest selling line, rather than maintain profit, Ansonia attempted to gain volume by offering clocks at "old pricing".

This tactic racked up huge debts, and by 1920 the number of models was down to 136 models, and 47 by 1927. In 1926, the company sold its Brooklyn warehouse, but this could not stem the inevitable. In 1929, the majority of the timekeeping machinery and tooling was sold to the Soviet government's US trading company Amtorg, just before the stock market crash. 

Ansonia closed in 2006, after 155 years of operation. Ansonia’s clocks are in the permanent collection of several museums, including the Brooklyn Museum and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Hartford.

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