CIRCA 1765

Details

A PAIR OF LATE LOUIS XV ORMOLU WALL LIGHTS
CIRCA 1765
Each with ribbon-tied guilloche-cast pierced backplate with central rams' head, surmounted by foliate-wrapped beaded disc and a flaming urn on pedestal, hung with garland swags and cast with mystical animal masks, the plate issuing two acanthus-cast fluted branches with circular later drip-pans and foliate-cast nozzles, with pleated cream shades, the urn associated, drilled for electricity
25½ in. (65 cm.) high (2)

Provenance

Anonymous sale, Drouot, Paris, 1-3 March 1886, lot 65 (to Steitiner).
Anonymous sale, Versailles, 27 November 1983, lot 167.
Anonymous sale, Christie's, New York, 21 May 1996, lot 253.
Bought from Perrin, Paris, 1997.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

These impressive appliques, conceived in the fashionable goût grec of the 1760's, with their ribbon-tied backplates centred by tête de beliers, derive from designs by the influential architect and dessinateur, Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-1791). Similar examples are illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, 1986, vol. I, p. 186, fig. 3.9.2 and S. Eriksen, Early Neoclassicism in France, 1974, fig. 214. Appliques à tête de belier by the bronzier Quentin-Claude Pitoin (circa 1725-1777) appear in a 1779 inventory of the prince de Condé. A further applique featuring a similar distinctive finial in the form of a tripod athénienne is illustrated in Ottomeyer and Pröschel, op. cit., p. 187, fig. 3.9.7.

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