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Lot Essay
This fashionable type of mantelpiece bronze garniture featuring youthful gardeners holding flower-pot candlebranches exemplifies the subject of 'Les enfants jardiniers', largely inspired by the paintings by Charles Le Brun, director at the Gobelins Tapestry Manufacture from 1662-1690, and later popularised by celebrated painters such as François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
A related pair of candelabra with porphyry bases is in the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, a further pair in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and another in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Further related examples offered at auction include a pair with porphyry bases, sold anonymously, Christie's, New York, 21 October 1997, lot 215 ($21,850 including premium) and a virtually identical pair from the collection of Giorgio Marsan and Umberta Nasi, offered, Christie's, London, 12-13 December 2007, lot 404.
A related pair of candelabra with porphyry bases is in the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, a further pair in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and another in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Further related examples offered at auction include a pair with porphyry bases, sold anonymously, Christie's, New York, 21 October 1997, lot 215 ($21,850 including premium) and a virtually identical pair from the collection of Giorgio Marsan and Umberta Nasi, offered, Christie's, London, 12-13 December 2007, lot 404.