MARK OF JACQUES BESNIER, PARIS, 1733

Details

A PAIR OF LOUIS XV SILVER THREE-LIGHT CANDELABRA
MARK OF JACQUES BESNIER, PARIS, 1733
Each on shaped circular base, decorated with ogee flutes and scallop shells applied with rocaille, rising to a conforming triangular section fluted baluster stem with husks and further scallop shells, the three-light detachable branches with central pear-shaped fluted finial, each marked underneath, inside domed centres, sockets and under drip-pans with charge, date-letter (R), maker; on foot-rim: decharge (objects going abroad) ; with later Portuguese control marks
14 ¼ in. (36 cm.) high
140 oz. 18 dwt. (4,384 gr.)

Provenance

Collection Dr Ricardo Espirito Santo Silva, Lisbon, 1955.
with Jacques Helft, Paris.
Acquired from the above by the Blaquier-Arrieta Family.

Exhibited

Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs; Les trésors de l’orfèvrerie du Portugal, November 1954-January 1955, p. 73, no. 357, pl. 171.
Lisbon, Fundação Ricardo do Espírito Santo Silva, Exposição de Ourivesaria Portuguesa e Francesa, April-May 1955.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Jacques Besnier appears to have been a specialist maker of candlesticks, producing fine examples from the time he registered his mark in 1720, such as the pair dated 1719-1720, sold in the David-Weill Collection sale on 24th November 1971, lot 10 and then in the Jourdan-Barry Collection illustrated in P. Fuhring, M. Bimbenet-Privat and A. Kugel, Orfèvrerie française. La collection Jourdan-Barry, Paris, 2005, vol. p. 41, no. 91.

These candelabra must have been re-sold to be exported to a foreign patron, after Jacques Besnier's death in 1761, as they are marked with the decharge for objects going abroad in use between 1762-1768.
A pair of candelabra of this model dated 1741 was sold at Christie's, Geneva, 11 November 1975, lot 221.

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