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Lot Essay
This strikingly unusual pair of candelabra with standing Africans wearing helmets of elephant heads reflects the enduring fascination with exotic ornament in French art and architecture. Depictions of Africa and Asia in contemporary engravings provided a wealth of inspiration for materials as diverse as a set of Gobelins tapestries depicting the Four Continents, each with their exotic attributes, and the immensely popular Sèvres garniture sets, mounted with opposing ormolu elephants, designed by Jean-Claude Du Plessis in the 1750s. Yet, this fascination of the exotic could reach extremes, as seen with a 1758 design for an elephant monument by the engineer Ribart de Chamoust. That elephant's hollowed out form included a grand central staircase, several rooms for entertainment and a waterfall issuing from the snout to a grotto below.
Interest in the exotic further permeated French society more subtly through the Enlightenment concepts of the 'noble savage' and man's gentle original nature, expressed in the works of philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). These ideas influenced writers such as Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, whose 1787 novel Paul and Virginie depicts a harmonious life between all races on the French island of Mauritius. This immensely popular novel inspired a wave of designs, including those published in 1799 by the Parisian clockmaker Jean Simon Deverberie (1764-1824). Titled, Cahier des desseins des Pendules, these engravings include a design for a clock garniture celebrating the continent of Africa, an example of which is in the Musée François Duesberg (E. Niehuser, French Bronze Clocks, 1700-1830, Atglen, 1999, fig. 262).
Deverberie's designs became so popular they were known as the 'pendules au bon sauvage' or 'style Deverberie.' Between 1795 and 1815, several different designs such as 'L'Amerique' and 'Indien et Indienne enlaci' were made in this genre. Though several versions of figural candelabra are known to exist, none share the distinctive elephant headdresses of these candelabra, which appear to be unique. Related examples include a pair, sold anonymously, Christie's, London 13 December 2001 and another sold anonymously, Sotheby's, New York, 3 June 2008, lot 153.
Interest in the exotic further permeated French society more subtly through the Enlightenment concepts of the 'noble savage' and man's gentle original nature, expressed in the works of philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). These ideas influenced writers such as Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, whose 1787 novel Paul and Virginie depicts a harmonious life between all races on the French island of Mauritius. This immensely popular novel inspired a wave of designs, including those published in 1799 by the Parisian clockmaker Jean Simon Deverberie (1764-1824). Titled, Cahier des desseins des Pendules, these engravings include a design for a clock garniture celebrating the continent of Africa, an example of which is in the Musée François Duesberg (E. Niehuser, French Bronze Clocks, 1700-1830, Atglen, 1999, fig. 262).
Deverberie's designs became so popular they were known as the 'pendules au bon sauvage' or 'style Deverberie.' Between 1795 and 1815, several different designs such as 'L'Amerique' and 'Indien et Indienne enlaci' were made in this genre. Though several versions of figural candelabra are known to exist, none share the distinctive elephant headdresses of these candelabra, which appear to be unique. Related examples include a pair, sold anonymously, Christie's, London 13 December 2001 and another sold anonymously, Sotheby's, New York, 3 June 2008, lot 153.