Lot Essay
These chenets are after the celebrated model first supplied by the marchand-fondeur Quentin-Claude Pitoin (1770-86) for the salon octagone of Madame du Barry at the château de Fontainebleau on 28 October 1772 (see P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1987, pp. 57-59, fig. 51-2). After the death of Louis XV in 1774 Madame du Barry moved the chenets to Louveciennes. They were greatly admired by Riesener, Julliot and Lignereux when, acting as Government Commissioners in January 1795, they valued them at 9,000 livres, remarking:
Peut-être l'object le plus fini, le plus délicatement exécuté en bronze que la cizelure ait encore produite. L'orfèvrerie a pu présenter des morceaux aussi légèrement evidés, mais le bronze ici joint au même succès une difficulté d'exécution incroyable
They recommended that they were objects which 'doit autant être conservé parmitif d'emulation qui d'attirait' and consequently, in l'an V, they were removed to the Palais Directorial du Luxembourg
The model was repeated on a number of occasions after 1772 for the use of the Royal family, most notably for Louis XVI's newly redecorated bibliothèque at Versailles circa 1775. Another pair was supplied for the salon des jeux at Compiègne
A pair in the Wrightsman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum, New York (see F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection II: Furniture, Gilt Bronze, Mounted Porcelain Carpets, New York, 1966, nos. 199 A & B, pp. 382-5). The Wrightsman pair may have belonged to the comte de Vergennes (1717-1787) and later they were in the possession of the bronze founders Baguès, who specialized in reproductions of bronzes d'ameublement in the 19th Century. In the 1829 sale of L. F. Feuchère père's moulds, it was further indicated that the copyright for lot 39
Deux beaux bronzes, cerf et sanglier sur marbre,
was retained by the vendor
The design of the boar is after the antique 'Uffizi' boar, now in the Mercato Nuovo, Florence
Peut-être l'object le plus fini, le plus délicatement exécuté en bronze que la cizelure ait encore produite. L'orfèvrerie a pu présenter des morceaux aussi légèrement evidés, mais le bronze ici joint au même succès une difficulté d'exécution incroyable
They recommended that they were objects which 'doit autant être conservé parmitif d'emulation qui d'attirait' and consequently, in l'an V, they were removed to the Palais Directorial du Luxembourg
The model was repeated on a number of occasions after 1772 for the use of the Royal family, most notably for Louis XVI's newly redecorated bibliothèque at Versailles circa 1775. Another pair was supplied for the salon des jeux at Compiègne
A pair in the Wrightsman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum, New York (see F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection II: Furniture, Gilt Bronze, Mounted Porcelain Carpets, New York, 1966, nos. 199 A & B, pp. 382-5). The Wrightsman pair may have belonged to the comte de Vergennes (1717-1787) and later they were in the possession of the bronze founders Baguès, who specialized in reproductions of bronzes d'ameublement in the 19th Century. In the 1829 sale of L. F. Feuchère père's moulds, it was further indicated that the copyright for lot 39
Deux beaux bronzes, cerf et sanglier sur marbre,
was retained by the vendor
The design of the boar is after the antique 'Uffizi' boar, now in the Mercato Nuovo, Florence