.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
These charming wall-lights reflect the fashion at Louis XV's court for trompe l'oeil porcelain flowers, first introduced at the Meissen manufactory in the early 1740's and perfected soon after at the Vincennes factory (which was given its royal charter in 1745 by Louis XV). They embody the amusing rococo concept of creating an eternal spring-time through the artificial means of porcelain flowers whose blooms will never fade.
Madame de Pompadours's favourite marchand-mercier, Lazare Duvaux (d. 1758) particularly promoted this fashion, and, on 28 December 1750, she purchased from him two wall-lights costing 204 livres and 195 livres for her use in the château de Bellevue, while the Dauphine Marie-Josèphe ordered similar wall-lights from him in 1749 for her apartment at Versailles. Such wall-lights were also popular among fashionable collectors in England, as revealed by a letter from the Earl of Chesterfield to the marquise de Monconseil in 1748, when he exclaimed 'Je languis donc pour ces bras de porcelaine, que vous avez kursiu la bonté de m'envoyer par le retour de mon marchand.'
A closely related pair of wall-lights is in the Wrightsman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (illustrated in F. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, Furniture, Gilt Bronze and Mounted Porcelain, New York, 1966, vol. II, p. 409, cat. 222), while a further set of four, also with Meissen figurines, is at Waddesdon Manor (illustrated in G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection, Furniture Clocks and Gilt Bronzes, Fribourg, 1974, vol. II, p. 794, cat. 218).
Madame de Pompadours's favourite marchand-mercier, Lazare Duvaux (d. 1758) particularly promoted this fashion, and, on 28 December 1750, she purchased from him two wall-lights costing 204 livres and 195 livres for her use in the château de Bellevue, while the Dauphine Marie-Josèphe ordered similar wall-lights from him in 1749 for her apartment at Versailles. Such wall-lights were also popular among fashionable collectors in England, as revealed by a letter from the Earl of Chesterfield to the marquise de Monconseil in 1748, when he exclaimed 'Je languis donc pour ces bras de porcelaine, que vous avez kursiu la bonté de m'envoyer par le retour de mon marchand.'
A closely related pair of wall-lights is in the Wrightsman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (illustrated in F. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, Furniture, Gilt Bronze and Mounted Porcelain, New York, 1966, vol. II, p. 409, cat. 222), while a further set of four, also with Meissen figurines, is at Waddesdon Manor (illustrated in G. de Bellaigue, The James A. de Rothschild Collection, Furniture Clocks and Gilt Bronzes, Fribourg, 1974, vol. II, p. 794, cat. 218).