A PAIR OF NORTH ITALIAN GILTWOOD AND BRONZED FIGURAL FOUR-BRANCH TORCHERES

MID-18TH CENTURY, PROBABLY GENOA

Details

A PAIR OF NORTH ITALIAN GILTWOOD AND BRONZED FIGURAL FOUR-BRANCH TORCHERES
MID-18TH CENTURY, PROBABLY GENOA
Each modelled as a Bacchic faun on a naturalistic rocky base, holding a young triton aloft, surmounted by four branches decorated with rock crystal drops, beads and flowers, fitted for electricity, losses and replacements to drops, partially redecorated
74 ½ in. (189 cm.) high; 23 in. (58 cm.) wide; 32 in. (81 cm.) deep, approx.

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Lot Essay

This pair of arresting torchères, with muscular fauns perilously climbing sectional rockwork bases and holding aloft young tritons, is typical of the almost surreal imagination of Genoese sculptors and designers at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, such as those of Domenico Piola and Filippo Parodi, Genoa’s finest sculptor of the Baroque.
Related Genoese carvings including a set of four reggitorcieri by Parodi of sea tritons supporting putti on similar rockwork bases in the Palazzo del Principe, Genoa, and a design for a reggitorciera headed by putti holding candle branches similar to the present examples (A. González-Palacios, Il Mobile in Liguria, Genoa, 1996, pp. 82-3 & 92, figs. 88-90 &107).

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