Lot Essay
The elegant combination of delicate rinceau scrolling foliage with exotic sphinxes and medallions of Cupid typifies the decorative vocabulary of the got trusque of the 1780's. A related design for a pair of chenets supplied by the bronzier Franois Rmond in 1780 to the princesse de Lamballe is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer/P. Prschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol.I, p. 279, fig. 4.12.3. The lower medallion of Cupid bearing flowers relates to an overdoor ilustrated by A. de Champeaux in his Portefeuille des arts dcoratifs.The combination of sphinxes and scrolling foliage may ultimately derive from the celebrated Italian designer Giovanni Battista Piranesi,who illustrated similar motifs in his Diversi maniere d'adornare i cammini, 1769 (illustrated in Ottomeyer/Prschel op. cit. , p.221, fig. 4d.). Decoration of this style was particularly suited to architectural treatments and appears in stucco panels designed by the architect Franois-Joseph Belanger for the comte d'Artois for the dining room at the chteau de Maisons, 1779-81, and in painted panels in the celebrated cabinet turc of the comte d'Artois at Versailles (see L'Objet Art ed., La Folie D'Artois, Paris, 1988, pp. 80-89).