A wall bracket is a small shelf fixed to a wall, designed to support a clock, bust, vase, candlestick or other ornament. Antique wall brackets are often decorative objects in their own right, carved, gilded or moulded to complement the piece they carry and the room in which they hang.
Brackets were especially popular in the eighteenth century, when carved giltwood examples in Rococo and Neoclassical taste were made to display porcelain and bronzes in fashionable rooms. Bracket clocks were frequently supplied with matching brackets veneered in walnut, ebony or mahogany, sometimes with brass mounts, although many clocks have since been separated from their originals. Victorian makers produced brackets in carved oak, papier-mâché, cast iron and plaster, and the Gothic Revival encouraged architectural designs resembling corbels. When assessing a wall bracket, collectors look at the quality of carving, the condition of gilding or finish, signs of original fixings and whether a pair survives intact, as pairs command a premium. Wall brackets remain useful in interiors today for raising ornaments to eye level, flanking mirrors or doorways and creating balanced, formal groupings on otherwise plain walls.
