Lot Essay
The C couronné poincon was a tax mark employed on any alloy incorporating copper between March 1745 and February 1749
The design for these candlesticks is closely related to those executed by Juste-Aurèle Meissonier in his Chandelier de sculpture en argent inventés par J. Meissonier of 1728, engraved as figures 10 and 12 of his Oeuvre and illustrated in F. Kimball, Le Style Louis XV, p. 167, fig. 201
A virtually identical pair of candlesticks is in the Wallace Collection, London, reproduced in F.J.B. Watson, Wallace Collection Catalogues, 1956, p. 21, nos. F78-79. Watson refers to a further pair in the San Donato sale, Paris, April 21, 1870, lot 1599, and these may conceivably be those sold from the collection of the late Wendell Cherry, Sotheby's New York, 20 May 1994, lot 34
Other examples executed in gilt-bronze alone are recorded:- one pair from the collection of Barons Nathaniel and Alphonse de Rothschild, Vienna, was sold from the collection of Mr. Akram Ojjeh, Sotheby's Monaco, 25-26 June 1979, lot 168. Another pair, formerly in the Wrightsman Collection, was sold at Sotheby's New York, 31 October 1981, lot 254 (see also F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, Vol. II, 1966, no. 1267 A,B). A further pair is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, no. 2.1.4., p. 103
The design for these candlesticks is closely related to those executed by Juste-Aurèle Meissonier in his Chandelier de sculpture en argent inventés par J. Meissonier of 1728, engraved as figures 10 and 12 of his Oeuvre and illustrated in F. Kimball, Le Style Louis XV, p. 167, fig. 201
A virtually identical pair of candlesticks is in the Wallace Collection, London, reproduced in F.J.B. Watson, Wallace Collection Catalogues, 1956, p. 21, nos. F78-79. Watson refers to a further pair in the San Donato sale, Paris, April 21, 1870, lot 1599, and these may conceivably be those sold from the collection of the late Wendell Cherry, Sotheby's New York, 20 May 1994, lot 34
Other examples executed in gilt-bronze alone are recorded:- one pair from the collection of Barons Nathaniel and Alphonse de Rothschild, Vienna, was sold from the collection of Mr. Akram Ojjeh, Sotheby's Monaco, 25-26 June 1979, lot 168. Another pair, formerly in the Wrightsman Collection, was sold at Sotheby's New York, 31 October 1981, lot 254 (see also F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, Vol. II, 1966, no. 1267 A,B). A further pair is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, no. 2.1.4., p. 103