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Lot Essay
The motif of a drapery-tied backplate is first recorded as early as 1756 on the wall-lights designed by Pierre Contant d'Ivry and supplied by Thomas Germain in 1756 to the duc d'Orlans for the Palais-Royal. Now in the J.Paul Getty Museum, they are illustrated in P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dors du XVIIIe Sicle, France, 1987, no. 18, p. 30. The Alexander model, however, clearly conceived in the late Transitional style, dates from circa 1775-80 and its ribbon-tied cresting and reeded branches more closely recall the wall-lights supplied by Quentin-Claude Pitoin in 1777 for M. Amelot, ministre de la maison du Roi (op.cit., p. 89, ill. 94).
These wall-lights belong to a group of at least twelve; of these, one pair was sold from the Collection Lehmann in Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 4-5 June 1925, lot 92; another pair, probably the same, was sold from the collection of Jaime Ortiz-Patio, Sotheby's New York, 20 May 1992, lot 38; and two sets of four were sold from the collection of Wendell Cherry, 20 May 1994, lots 39-40 ($129,000 and $184,000). Four further wall-lights of this model, probably one of the latter, are discussed in Partridge, Recent Acquisitions 1996, London, no.44, p.107.
These wall-lights belong to a group of at least twelve; of these, one pair was sold from the Collection Lehmann in Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 4-5 June 1925, lot 92; another pair, probably the same, was sold from the collection of Jaime Ortiz-Patio, Sotheby's New York, 20 May 1992, lot 38; and two sets of four were sold from the collection of Wendell Cherry, 20 May 1994, lots 39-40 ($129,000 and $184,000). Four further wall-lights of this model, probably one of the latter, are discussed in Partridge, Recent Acquisitions 1996, London, no.44, p.107.