Lot Essay
A similar pair, possibly even from the same workshop, are illustrated Ottomeyer & Pröschel. Vergoldete Bronzen: Bronzearbeiten des Spätbarock und Klassizismus, pl. XLVIII, p. 315, circa 1870 and from the collection at Schloß Haimhausen. The model follows Louis XV/XVI patterns from the third quarter of the eighteenth-century, whilst the entwined snakes were used extensively in the second half of the eighteenth-century, notably by Jean-Guillaume Moite, who supplied designs for use by Willaim Beckford at Fonthill Abbey, as well as designs published by Ennemond Alexandre Petitot and Gilles-Paul Cauvet.