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Lot Essay
The C couronn poinon was a tax mark employed in France on any alloy containing copper between March 1745 and February 1749.
Designed in the Louis XV 'pittoresque' style popularised by Just-Aurle Meissonier and Nicolas Pineau, these wall-lights can be attributed to the sculpteur, fondeur et ciseleur du roi Jacques Caffiri (1678-1755), probably with the assistance of his son, Philippe (1714-1774). With their distinctive drip-pans and nozzles, pierced guilloche branches and dense, flower-embellished backplates, they display close similarities with the suite of four supplied to Madame Infante, Louise-Elizabeth of France, duchesse de Parma for the Palazzo di Colorno. Now in the J.Paul Getty Museum (C. Bremer-David, Decorative Arts, An Illustrated Summary Catalogue of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1993, no.168, p,103), these latter wall-lights were almost certainly amongst the thirty-four wagons of furnishings and fineries brought back to Colorno from the duchesse's second trip to Paris between September 1752 and September 1753.
Whilst Madame Infante is known to have purchased much directly from the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux, as well as from the ciseleur, doreur sur mtaux du Roy Antoine Lelivre, it was Caffiri who was most extensively patronised on this commision. As Peter Hughes has argued in The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Furniture,, vol. III, London, 1996, no. 266, pp. 1310-1315, however, some of the gilt-bronze may actually have been originally commissioned by Louis XV for his own use a few years before and given by him to his eldest daughter; this hypothesis is based particularly upon the ormolu chandelier, also from Colorno, now in the Wallace, which is signed and dated CAFFIERI A PARIS 1751 and was, therefore, commissioned before their arrival in Paris.
A pair of two-branch wall-lights of somewhat similar form, probably also executed by Caffiri, appear in the background of the 1765 portrait of Princess Luisa of Parma by Laurent Pcheux, which is conserved in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (see lot 115).
The relevant issue of Connaissance des Arts is included in lot 313.
Designed in the Louis XV 'pittoresque' style popularised by Just-Aurle Meissonier and Nicolas Pineau, these wall-lights can be attributed to the sculpteur, fondeur et ciseleur du roi Jacques Caffiri (1678-1755), probably with the assistance of his son, Philippe (1714-1774). With their distinctive drip-pans and nozzles, pierced guilloche branches and dense, flower-embellished backplates, they display close similarities with the suite of four supplied to Madame Infante, Louise-Elizabeth of France, duchesse de Parma for the Palazzo di Colorno. Now in the J.Paul Getty Museum (C. Bremer-David, Decorative Arts, An Illustrated Summary Catalogue of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1993, no.168, p,103), these latter wall-lights were almost certainly amongst the thirty-four wagons of furnishings and fineries brought back to Colorno from the duchesse's second trip to Paris between September 1752 and September 1753.
Whilst Madame Infante is known to have purchased much directly from the marchand-mercier Lazare Duvaux, as well as from the ciseleur, doreur sur mtaux du Roy Antoine Lelivre, it was Caffiri who was most extensively patronised on this commision. As Peter Hughes has argued in The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Furniture,, vol. III, London, 1996, no. 266, pp. 1310-1315, however, some of the gilt-bronze may actually have been originally commissioned by Louis XV for his own use a few years before and given by him to his eldest daughter; this hypothesis is based particularly upon the ormolu chandelier, also from Colorno, now in the Wallace, which is signed and dated CAFFIERI A PARIS 1751 and was, therefore, commissioned before their arrival in Paris.
A pair of two-branch wall-lights of somewhat similar form, probably also executed by Caffiri, appear in the background of the 1765 portrait of Princess Luisa of Parma by Laurent Pcheux, which is conserved in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (see lot 115).
The relevant issue of Connaissance des Arts is included in lot 313.