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Lot Essay
In their overall form, with Bacchic ram's-headed urns and guilloche-panelled arms swagged with ribbon-tied baguettes and surmounted by playful putti, these chenets share much in common with the oeuvre of the bronzier and sculpteur Jean-Louis Prieur (maître in 1769). A related design of circa 1770 from the Odiot album attributed to Prieur, although surmounted by a Bacchic putto resting after harvesting grapes rather than playing with a ram, is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, Band I, 3.14.7.. Interestingly, a further pair of chenets, undoubtedly executed in the same workshop and displaying an identical ram's-headed vase and Bacchic putto playing with a ram is at the Petit Trianon at Versailles (illustrated op. cit., 4.11.9).
Jean-Louis Prieur is first recorded in 1765, when he was appointed as a sculpteur to the Academy de St.-Luc. Received as a maître in 1769, he established his workshop in the Faubourg St-Denis 'à l'enseigne des armes d'Angleterre' and subsequently styled himself as sculpteur, cizeleur et doreur du Roy. Aside from enjoying Royal patronage in Paris from not only Louis XVI, but also the comte d'Artois and the Prince de Condé, Prieur also found favour abroad, particulary with King Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski, King of Poland for Warsaw between 1766-early 1770's. Prieur published a series of engavings in 1783.
Jean-Louis Prieur is first recorded in 1765, when he was appointed as a sculpteur to the Academy de St.-Luc. Received as a maître in 1769, he established his workshop in the Faubourg St-Denis 'à l'enseigne des armes d'Angleterre' and subsequently styled himself as sculpteur, cizeleur et doreur du Roy. Aside from enjoying Royal patronage in Paris from not only Louis XVI, but also the comte d'Artois and the Prince de Condé, Prieur also found favour abroad, particulary with King Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski, King of Poland for Warsaw between 1766-early 1770's. Prieur published a series of engavings in 1783.