MID-18TH CENTURY

This richly scrolled and leaf-wrapped giltwood torchere relates to furniture and designs of the mid-18th Century, such as the exaggerated scrolled base of a longcase clock in the Museen der Stadt, Regensburg (H. Kreisel, G. Himmelheber Der Kunst des deutschen Möbels, Munich, 1970, II, fig. 769) after a design by Johann Michael Hoppenhaupt II of about 1760. A related Würzburg torchere of about 1744, in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum (Kreisel, G. Himmelheber op. cit, fig. 520), is conceived in a similar rococo manner, but lacks the vitality of organic movement present in this example.