Designed in the goût étrusque so popular in the 1780's, these table lamps feature a lightly clad youth and his companion studying by the light of Roman lamps, which also serve as their couches. A related lamp surmounted by a female figure, perhaps emblematic of History, features as a garniture in a drawing in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (see J. Bourne and V. Brett, Lighting in the Domestic Interior, 1991, fig. 530). Models for Le Philosophie, La Lectrice, and L'Etude in porcelain were first excecuted for a lampe antique in 1780 by Louis-Simon Boizot, sculpteur du Roi (d. 1809). He succeeded Etienne Falconet as Director of Sculpture at the Royal Sèvres Manufactory in 1773 and later worked in conjunction with the celebrated bronzier, Pierre-Philippe Thomire (see E. Bourgeois, Le Biscuit de Sèvres, Paris, 1909, vol. II, p. 22). They also feature a clock model, known as L'Etude et la Philosophie for which the bronzier François Rémond, maître in 1774, produced a design commissioned by the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre (see C. Jagger, Royal Clocks, London, 1983, p. 155). Other examples of this model have been sold in these Rooms, 25 May 1993, lot 47, 1 November 1989, lot 39, and 26 October 1994, lot 1, and Christie's London, 9 June 1994, lot 65.