These impressive wall lights, with ram's masks or têtes de belier issuing acanthus-wrapped arms beneath a classical urn with laurel-wreath swags, were conceived in the fashionable goût grec of the late 1760s and early 1770s, and bear a close resemblance to several models by various well-known bronziers. A similar pair of wall lights with three candle-branches in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, is illustrated in S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 212. Eriksen dates the model to circa 1770 on the basis of similar examples with the tête de belier supplied by the bronzier Quentin-Claude Pitoin (circa 1725-1777) to the Prince de Condé in 1771, which appear in his inventory in 1779. Philippe Caffiéri also had a model with a ram's head in his stock described in the inventory drawn up in December 1770. The influential architect and dessinateur Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-1791) also conceived examples with such a feature. Similar wall lights are illustrated in H. Ottomeyer/P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 186, 3.9, while another pair was sold anonymously, Christie's New York, 21 May 1997, lot 531.