Lot Essay
These imposing appliques, conceived in the fashionable goût grec of the 1760's with ribbon-tied back plates centering a tête de belier, derive from designs by the influential architect and dessinateur, Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-1791). Similar examples are illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, 1986, vol. I, p. 186, fig. 3.9.2 and S. Eriksen, Early Neoclassicism in France, 1974, fig. 214. Appliques of the tête de belier model by the bronzier Quentin-Claude Pitoin (circa 1725-1777) appear in a 1779 inventory of the prince de Condé. An applique with similar distinctive finial in the form of a tripod athénienne is illustrated in Ottomeyer and Pröschel, op. cit., p. 187, fig. 3.9.7.