Lot Essay
Karl Friedrich Schinkel (d.1841) created metalwork designs for the Royal Prussian Iron Foundry, Berlin, both in cast-iron and cast-zinc. For Moritz Geiss, a metalwork founder, he assisted in supplying over half the designs in a catalogue of cast-zinc products. A cast-iron bench with similar anthropomorphic feet to the torcheres and a cast-zinc table, both designed by Schinkel, are on public exhibition at the Romanische Bader (Roman Baths Building) Charlottenhof. In 1822 Friedrich Wilhelm III acquired the Charlottenhof Estate and promised it to the Crown Prince Wilhelm as a Christmas present. In 1826 Schinkel was commissioned to convert the house and execute architectural work in the park. The works were completed by 1829 and included inspiration from Roman and Pompeian architecture and themes from Antiquity, incorporating marble vestibules, loggias, small sculpture galleries, porticos, balconies and baths. See Michael Snodin Karl Friedrich Schinkel - A Universal Man, V & A, p.60 for a bench, with similar legs to the present torcheres, at Schloss Charlottenhof.