A SET OF FOUR LOUIS XVI ORMOLU, GILT LEAD AND BLEU TURQUIN MARBLE THREE-LIGHT CANDELABRA

NORTH EUROPEAN, CIRCA 1785, PROBABLY ORIGINALLY WITH MARBLE SOCLES AND PLINTHS

Details

A SET OF FOUR LOUIS XVI ORMOLU, GILT LEAD AND BLEU TURQUIN MARBLE THREE-LIGHT CANDELABRA
NORTH EUROPEAN, CIRCA 1785, PROBABLY ORIGINALLY WITH MARBLE SOCLES AND PLINTHS
Each with an ovoid body with pierced foliate guilloche-panelled band and ring handles surmounted by a foliate spray issuing three lily stems with flower and terminating in conforming nozzles with detachable drip-pans, on a foliate cap and a waisted foot on a fruiting laurel rim and square base, drip-pans and nozzles drilled for electricity, regilt
42 in. (107 cm.) high (4)

Lot Essay

These splendid candelabra, with ovoid marble vases issuing lush sprays of lilies, relate to other candelabra of the 1780's featuring naturalistic lily sprays, notably a pair with marble bodies in the Musée Jaquemart André, Paris, and a pair with Sèvres porcelain bodies in the Jones Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (illustrated in H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 259, figs. 4.7.11 and 4.7.12).

These candelabra are particularly unusual, both through the fact that they are a set of four, and as the sprays are of gilded lead, rather than gilt-bronze, pointing to an origin outside France.

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