CIRCA 1780

These remarkable candelabra with their distinctive pineapple finials , rinceaux scrolling arms and bodies of green granite (possibly Granit des Vosges), are closely related to a celebrated pair in the collection of Laurent Grimod de la Reynière, sold at his death in 1797 and more recently sold at Christie's, Monaco, 19 June 1999, lot 82. The Grimod de la Reynière candelabra were supplied to the Hôtel de la Reynière (now the United States Embassy) some time after 1778 and were possibly designed by the architect François-Joseph Bélanger, who was responsible for the sumptuous interiors of the hôtel. Sophisticated amateurs in the 1770's and 1780's were particularly inspired to collect the hardstones of classical antiquity. Foremost among these collectors was the Duc d'Aumont, who established a hardstone cutting workshop under his supervision at the Menus Plaisirs, and whose daughter-in-law the Duchesse de Mazarin, herself a noted collector and client of Bélanger, owned a mine in Alsace (opened in 1774) from which Granit des Vosges was extracted, and which might have been the source for the granite of the Grimod de la Reynière candelabra and those offered here.