AMERICAN BRASS CHAN- CHANDELIER, a frame of metal, DELIER, 18TH CENTURY wood, crystal, glass or china, suspended from the roof or ceiling for the purpose of holding lights. The word is French, but the appliance has lost its original significance of a candle-holder, the chandelier being now chiefly used for gas and electric lighting. Clusters of hanging lights were in use as early as the 14th century, and appear originally to have been almost invariably of wood. They were, however, so speedily ruined by grease that metal was gradually substituted, and fine and corn paratively early examples in beaten iron, brass, copper and even silver are still extant. Throughout the 17th century the hanging candle-holder of brass or bronze was common throughout northern Europe, as innumerable pictures and engravings testify. In the great periods of the art of deco ration in France many magnifi cent chandeliers were made by Boulle, and at a later date by Gouthiere and Thomire and others among the extraordinarily clever fondeurs-ciseleurs of the second half of the 18th century. The chandelier in rock crystal and its imitations had come in at least a hundred years before their day, and continued in fa vour to the middle of the 19th century, or even somewhat later. It reached at last the most ex treme elaboration of banality, with ropes of pendants and hang ing faceted drops often called lustres. When many lights were burning in one of these chande liers an effect of splendour was produced that was not out of place in a ballroom, but the ordinary household varieties were extremely ugly and inartistic. The more purely domestic chandelier usually carries from two to six lights. The present use of electricity and the modern ideas of interior lighting have pushed into the background the elabo rate specimens of the past few centuries and substituted the simpler designs with smaller clusters of lights. (See also LIGHT ING AND ARTIFICIAL ILLUMINATION ; INTERIOR DECORATION.)