Lot Essay
This 'Fortuna' chandelier, displaying the Goddess of Good Fortune supported on a sphere that is wrapped by ribboned garlands tied to a Bacchic thyrsus-finial, while the corona celebrates the triumph of Apollo's lyric poetry, is inspired by the 'antique' style popularised by Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine's Recueil des Décorations Intérieures of 1801. In its execution, it relates to the oeuvre of the bronzier Antoine-André Ravrio (1759-1814), who supplied similar stylised putti on the wall-lights executed for the Grand-Trianon in 1813, the watercolour design of which is retained in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, fig. 5.10.5-6), aswell as on the chandelier bearing the cypher of Eugène de Beauharnais (op. cit., fig. 5.11.9). Related swan-necked branches issuing from a sphere appear on chandeliers at Schloss Wilhelmshöhe and in the Residenz, Munich (op. cit., fig. 5.11.5).