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Lot Essay
These candelabra belong to a group whose central female figure is based on an 1802 design by Charles Percier for a console table with uprights in the form of an almost identical female caryatid (reproduced here; H. Ottomeyer & P. Pröschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 336, fig. 5.3.1). A console table inspired by this design was delivered by Thomire and Duterme, possibly before 1806, to Le Brun, troisième Consul and later prince architresorier de l'Empire, which is now in the Grand Trianon (D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Grand Trianon, Meubles at Objets d'Art, 1975, vol. I,pp. 20-21). The Grand Trianon console formed part of Le Brun's furnishings in the Pavillion de Flore, Tuileries, and then after 1806 in the hôtel de Noailles.
Many related examples of candelabra featuring the same figure are known. The closest pair, which include identical falcons and the same original branch arrangement (although the branches of the present pair have been slightly altered as catalogued) is in the nouveau cabinet de travail on the ground floor at Pavlovsk (reproduced here; A. Kuchumov, Pavlovsk, Palace and Park, 1975. pp. 176, 178 and 180). These candelabra were probably supplied to Czar Paul I for St. Michael's Castle in St. Petersburg by the marchand-mercier Jérome Culot, who commissioned many of the bronzes from Pierre-Philippe Thomire. Another pair of the Pavlovsk model was supplied by Thomire to the Mobilier Impérial, later transferred to the château de Saint-Cloud and is now in the Grande Chancellerie de la Légion d'Honneur, Hôtel de Salm, Paris (J.M. Humbert, et al., Egyptomanie, 1994, p. 286, no. 167). A further pair was sold from the collection of M. Hubert de Givenchy, Christie's Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 39 and another is illustrated in Ottomeyer and Pröschel (op. cit., p. 336, fig. 5.3.3). Other examples of the model include a pair in a private collection illustrated in Humbert op. cit., p. 286, fig. 2, a pair appearing in a picture by Fedotov illustrated in M. Praz, An Illustrated History of Furnishing, 1964, p. 280, fig. 260, and a pair with three branches, sold Christie's London, 31 May 1962, lot 80.
Many related examples of candelabra featuring the same figure are known. The closest pair, which include identical falcons and the same original branch arrangement (although the branches of the present pair have been slightly altered as catalogued) is in the nouveau cabinet de travail on the ground floor at Pavlovsk (reproduced here; A. Kuchumov, Pavlovsk, Palace and Park, 1975. pp. 176, 178 and 180). These candelabra were probably supplied to Czar Paul I for St. Michael's Castle in St. Petersburg by the marchand-mercier Jérome Culot, who commissioned many of the bronzes from Pierre-Philippe Thomire. Another pair of the Pavlovsk model was supplied by Thomire to the Mobilier Impérial, later transferred to the château de Saint-Cloud and is now in the Grande Chancellerie de la Légion d'Honneur, Hôtel de Salm, Paris (J.M. Humbert, et al., Egyptomanie, 1994, p. 286, no. 167). A further pair was sold from the collection of M. Hubert de Givenchy, Christie's Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 39 and another is illustrated in Ottomeyer and Pröschel (op. cit., p. 336, fig. 5.3.3). Other examples of the model include a pair in a private collection illustrated in Humbert op. cit., p. 286, fig. 2, a pair appearing in a picture by Fedotov illustrated in M. Praz, An Illustrated History of Furnishing, 1964, p. 280, fig. 260, and a pair with three branches, sold Christie's London, 31 May 1962, lot 80.