CIRCA 1720

Details

A FRENCH REGENCE GILTWOOD WALL BRACKET
CIRCA 1720
The serpentine rouge de Maine marble top above a rope-twist moulded frieze centred by a Bacchic mask flanked by scrolled supports carved with upswept foliage and acorns, the shaped shell-carved back centred by a scythe and a winged hour-glass allegorical of Time, with bearded mask boss emblematic of Father Time, with remains of a red-bordered paper label inscribed '457(?)1 R..f..l', originally conceived as a bracket for a clock, the marble top later
21¼ in. (54 cm.) high; 18¾ in. (47.5 cm.) wide; 9¾ in. (24.5 cm.) deep

Provenance

With Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York.
Anonymous sale, Christie's, New York, 21 May 1997, lot 575 ($18,400 including premium).

Exhibited

New York, Rosenberg & Stiebel, Inc., Menuiserie: The Carved Wood Furniture of 18th France, 18 April-14 June 1986, pp. 18-19, no. 4.

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

Appropriate for a 'cartel' clock, this golden wall-bracket is richly sculpted in Louis Quatorze 'Roman' fashion to evoke the poets' Arcadian Golden Age as ruled by Cronus Saturn. A bas-relief peace-trophy tablet, uniting winged time's hour-glass and scythe, accompanies the agriculture deity, from whose shell-crowned head issue wave-scrolled trusses to support the lambrequined bracket bearing the satyr head of the fertility god Pan. The masks relate in particular to the engraved work of the 'Sculpteur du Roy' Bernard Toro (Tarot) (d. c. 1720), some of whose Oeuvres, were issued in London by F. Noble as 'Masks and Other Ornaments', 1745.

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