MID-18TH CENTURY

Following a sinuous, malleable design, these very finely chased ormolu candlesticks are cast with the arms of Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (1736-1818). Louis Joseph was the only son of Louis Henri I, Prince of Condé (1692–1740) and Landgravine Caroline of Hesse-Rotenburg (1714–41). As a cadet of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a prince du sang. His father Louis Henri, was the eldest son of Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (known as Monsieur le Duc) and his wife Louise Françoise de Bourbon, legitimated daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan.

The unusual design of these candlesticks is apparently virtually unique; only one other pair is known to exist, although without coat-of-arms, sold Sotheby’s Monaco, 17 June 1988, lot 748. They relate to the celebrated design for a candlestick executed by Juste-Aurele Meissonnier (d. 1750) on the occasion of the birth of the Dauphin in 1729 (P. Fuhring, Juste-Aurele Meissonnier: Un genie du rococo 1695-1750, Turin, 1999, pp. 193-197). Of this latter model – a rococo tour-de-force consisting entirely of swirling forms – various examples are known to exist, such as those in the Louvre, in the Wallace Collection and at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, as well as those sold Christie’s Paris, 14 December 2004, lot 229 (€ 35,250) and 25 April 2018, lot 89 (€32,500).