Lot Essay
The son of the Court painter P.F. von Hetsch, Gustav Friedrich Hetsch (1788-1864) was a leading Neo-Classical architect at the Court of Christian IX of Denmark in the first half of the 19th Century. A pupil of Charles Percier while studying architecture in Paris. Hetsch's architectural designs, including the ambitious award - winning design for a National Museum, strongly reflect the influence of his teacher and the German architect/designer Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
A closely related pair of candelabra, supplied by Hetsch to Christian IX of Denmark, for which the drawing still survives in the State Archives in Copenhagen, are discussed in Carlton Hobbs, Exhibition Catalogue Number Two, no. 17 and illustrated in J. Bourne and V. Brett, Lighting in the Domestic Interior, London 1991, p. 181, fig. 593.
The influence of Percier on their design is revealed by the engraving for a Candélabre exécuté chez Mr. D à Paris in C. Percier and P. Fontaine's, Recuits des decorations Interieures, Paris, 1802
A closely related pair of candelabra, supplied by Hetsch to Christian IX of Denmark, for which the drawing still survives in the State Archives in Copenhagen, are discussed in Carlton Hobbs, Exhibition Catalogue Number Two, no. 17 and illustrated in J. Bourne and V. Brett, Lighting in the Domestic Interior, London 1991, p. 181, fig. 593.
The influence of Percier on their design is revealed by the engraving for a Candélabre exécuté chez Mr. D à Paris in C. Percier and P. Fontaine's, Recuits des decorations Interieures, Paris, 1802