Lot Essay
The model for these candelabra is based on a drawing from the catalogue of the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre, circa 1785, and now in the Muse des Arts Dcoratifs, Paris (see H. Ottomeyer P. Prschel et al, Vergoldete Bronzen, 1986, vol. I, p. 283, fig. no. 4.14.4). Similar candelabra were retailed by Daguerre around this time to his fashionable clients such as the princess Kinsky, and supplied by the fondeur Franois Rmond. The somewhat stiff treatment of the figures and the heavy folds of the drapery point however to an attribution to Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751-1843), another leading fondeur of his time, who is known to have reproduced many Louis XVI models under the Empire.
A very close model from a set of four designated to be placed in the corners of a salon are in the Wallace Collection, illustrated in F. J. B. Watson, Wallace Collection catalogue, Furniture, London, 1956, pl. 18, while another pair of this model is in the Louvre and reproduced in Pierre Verlet, The Eighteenth Century in France, 1967, p. 30, pl. 21.
A very close model from a set of four designated to be placed in the corners of a salon are in the Wallace Collection, illustrated in F. J. B. Watson, Wallace Collection catalogue, Furniture, London, 1956, pl. 18, while another pair of this model is in the Louvre and reproduced in Pierre Verlet, The Eighteenth Century in France, 1967, p. 30, pl. 21.