A RUSSIAN ORMOLU EIGHT-LIGHT CHANDELIER
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A RUSSIAN ORMOLU EIGHT-LIGHT CHANDELIER

EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Details
A RUSSIAN ORMOLU EIGHT-LIGHT CHANDELIER
EARLY 19TH CENTURY
The circular corona mounted with foliate sprays and suspending from lyre-cast chains, the dished bowl with a central pierced vase-shaped finial, and mounted with relief-cast laurel wreaths and putti in swan-drawn chariots, issuing scrolling foliate branches with vase-shaped nozzles, the bowl decorated with anthemion and floral wreaths and terminating in a pine-cone boss
53 in. (135 cm.) high; 32 in. (82 cm.) diameter
Special notice
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

This chandelier is designed in the Grecian or antique fashion popularised by C. Percier and P. Fontaine's, Recueil de décorations intérieures, 1801. Its palm-leaf tazza frieze is flowered with Apollo sunflowers and its hollowed bowl evokes the festive harvest deities, Bacchus and Ceres, with a wreath of vine-entwined corn. The sunflowered frieze also features on a chandelier-tazza, surmounted by a dancing bacchante, illustrated in G. Henriot, Le Luminaire de la Renaissance au XIXème siècle, Paris, 1933, pl. 219 no. 20. Another of the latter model was sold at Christies, London, 11-12 June 2003, lot 52.

The present chandelier relates to various examples at Pavlovsk, and typifies the ardent fashion for opulent chandeliers in Russia in the late 18th and early 19th Century. Some of these were executed by Johann Zech, who, together with another craftsman named Fischer, was responsible for many of the chandeliers in the Imperial palaces in St. Petersburg. A closely related example, with similar applied maiden figures to the glass bowl, is in the corner sitting room at Pavlovsk and is illustrated in A. Gaydamak, Russian Empire, Moscow/Paris, 2000, pp. 126-128.

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