Lot 16
Henry N. Hooper & Co
, 1840
The chandelier was completed later that year at the cost of $4,200, approximately $150,000 today. Dramatically, on 18 December 1840 only a few months after its installation, a link in the chandelier's chain broke while it was being lowered for maintenance and the entire piece came crashing down. Several Representatives' desks were destroyed and the House had to vacate the Chamber for three days. The assistant House clerk, Benjamin Brown French, noted in this diary, "this is the second chandelier that has fallen [...] I prophecy it will be the last." Prints from the 1830s and 1850s depicting the House's interior record no chandeliers, and none exists there today perhaps precisely in response to this ill-fated history. See the article "A Fallen Chandelier in the House Chamber" from the US House of Representatives' Office of the Historian
€880 - 1.800
Eduardo Chillida 
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