Pewter and Britannia metal were often employed to fashion lighting devices; for the most part the known examples date from the 19th-century. Rufus Dunham, one of the principal manufacturers of lighting, created this pair of candlesticks.

Dunham ran away from home to Portland, Maine, to be apprenticed to Steven Porter in Stevens Plains, Westbrook, Maine, in 1831. Two years later, in 1833, he broke the contract and went to work for Roswell Gleason in Dorchester, Massachusetts—an arrangement that lasted for four years. He then went to Poughkeepsie, New York, where he purchased molds and tools. In 1837 he returned to Stevens Plains and opened a shop with his brother John as an assistant. At one time he employed twenty to thirty men and sold his goods in New England and Canada. In 1861 his buildings burned down, and he moved back to Portland, where he opened the firm Rufus Dunham and Sons. The business was liquidated in 1882.

Related examples: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Art Gallery.