Lot Essay
Designed in the Louis XV 'pittoresque' style popularised by Juste-Aurèle Meissonier and Nicolas Pineau, these chenets relate to the oeuvre of the sculpteur, fondeur et ciseleur du roi Jacques Caffiéri (1678-1755). Related parroqueets, placed on wall-lights, are recorded in the Inventory drawn up following his death in 1755, no.43: un autre model double de bras de chemineé ancien perroquets à deux branches, and this model was already listed in an earlier inventory of his stock in 1747. Two related pairs of parrot wall-lights, one with two and one with three branches, were supplied to Madame Infante, Louise-Elizabeth of France, duchesse de Parma for the Palazzo di Colorno (discussed in A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Gli Arredi Francesi, Milan, 1995, no. 52, p. 243).