Set of candle holders palm-tortoise style

Long before interior design existed as a profession, the turtle was already a fixture in the decorative arts - carrying with it associations of longevity, protection, and cosmic order across cultures that had never met. It travelled into European homes through Chinoiserie in the 17th and 18th centuries, when aristocrats importing Chinese porcelain and lacquerware also absorbed the symbolic language that came with it. It reappeared in Victorian interiors as a fascination with natural forms took hold. It found its way onto the coffee tables of Hollywood Regency apartments, where Dorothy Draper and her contemporaries used it as a quiet signal of worldly sophistication. Each era added a layer. None of them erased the ones before. The turtle on a table today is not simply decorative. It is the descendant of a very long conversation between cultures, centuries, and the persistent human instinct to surround ourselves with objects that carry meaning. Found on antique market in Istanbul this set is now looking for its next home.