Page 113 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

Lodge of the Nine Muses 113

classical architecture; this looks awkward in the plate, but is a matter of indifference
in the Lodge. The Master’s candlestick is 3 feet 1¾ inches high, the others
3 feet 1 inchs and 3 feet 6 inches respectively.
The square “dies” of the pedestals are painted with lively miniatures of the Nine
Muses, possibly by Cipriani, three on each candlestick; the fourth side in each case
is filled with attributes of the Muses arranged as a kind of heraldic achievement.
A shield, flanked by branches of palm and laurel, shows a fountain and a palm
tree against a landscape background; as a crest an arm appears, the hand holding a
palm branch. A small red crescent in the “dexter chief”, or left-hand top corner, of
the shield cannot be explained by the writer. Heraldically it would imply a cadet
branch of the family, but this cannot apply to the daughters of the first of the gods!
The miniatures on the candlesticks have been identified as follows:
On the Master’s candlestick: Urania, Calliope, Polyhymnia
On the Senior Warden’s: Thalia, Melpomene and Terpsichore.
On the Junior Warden’s: Erato, Clio and Euterpe.
The miniatures are painted in oil and a good deal of the original brilliant
colouring remains. 41
It may be noticed that the Senior Warden’s candlestick is wrongly put together;
the parts above the capital are slewed round through 45 degrees. This must have
been done during some cleaning or repair; no eighteenth-century craftsman could
have sent a candlestick out so. An opportunity should be found for putting it right. 42
These candlesticks were the subject of a curious and amusing controversy
between the Nine Muses and the Prince of Wales’s Lodge, in the founding of
which in 1787 Bro. the Chevalier Ruspini had a large share; he was Treasurer of
that Lodge from its constitution to his death in 1813.
The List of Members of the Prince of Wales’s Lodge, printed in 1890, has the
following note under the date 19 March 1813:
The Chevalier Ruspini reported that the candlesticks presented by him to the
Lodge in 1804 had been forcibly taken away from the Tavern by some members
of the Lodge of the Nine Muses, which had been revived by him and to which
Lodge these candlesticks had formerly belonged. A temperate remonstrance was

41 The storage area at Bakers’ Hall was adjacent to the heating plant and the miniatures on the
candlesticks deteriorated in the hot dry atmosphere.
42 The candlesticks were again refurbished and corrected when the Lodge moved to MMH in
1979 but the miniatures thereon were too delicate to restore.