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Lot Essay
The 1790s studies of the French connoisseur/antiquarian Baron Dominique Vivant Denon (d.1825), director of the Museum Central des Arts and author of Voyages dans la basse et la houte Egypte (1802), encouraged the Parisian marchand-mercier Martin-Eloi Lignereux (d.1809) in the introduction of Egyptian elements in the mantelpiece garnitures he designed for clock-makers such as C-G. Manière (d. after 1812), and which incorporated Roman figures by bronziers such as Antoine-Andrè Ravrio (d.1814).
The present pattern of phaeronic lotus-flowered candelabra, featuring Egyptian flame-bearing and laurel-wreathed vestals reposed by sacred urn-capped pillars, accompanied one of Manière's Egyptian 'pylon' altar clocks that was attended by torch-bearing Apollo in his light-bringing role as sun deity, while a lyre evoked his Parnassian role as, 'Musagette', companion of the Muses of artistic inspiration.
The publication of C. Percier and P. Fontaine's, Récueil de décorations interieures (1801), no doubt encouraged by George, Prince of Wales, later George IV in his acquisition of one of Lignereux's Apollo clocks through the services of Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh (d.1846). It was also during his Paris visit, which began in 1802, that Sir Harry commissioned another Apollo clock for himself, and this was accompanied by vestal candelabra of the present pattern, but raised on red marble bases that evoke Egyptian porphyry (C. Rowell, 'French Furniture at Uppark', Furniture History, 2007, pp, 267-292, figs. 5 and 4).
The present pattern of phaeronic lotus-flowered candelabra, featuring Egyptian flame-bearing and laurel-wreathed vestals reposed by sacred urn-capped pillars, accompanied one of Manière's Egyptian 'pylon' altar clocks that was attended by torch-bearing Apollo in his light-bringing role as sun deity, while a lyre evoked his Parnassian role as, 'Musagette', companion of the Muses of artistic inspiration.
The publication of C. Percier and P. Fontaine's, Récueil de décorations interieures (1801), no doubt encouraged by George, Prince of Wales, later George IV in his acquisition of one of Lignereux's Apollo clocks through the services of Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh (d.1846). It was also during his Paris visit, which began in 1802, that Sir Harry commissioned another Apollo clock for himself, and this was accompanied by vestal candelabra of the present pattern, but raised on red marble bases that evoke Egyptian porphyry (C. Rowell, 'French Furniture at Uppark', Furniture History, 2007, pp, 267-292, figs. 5 and 4).