PROBABLY FRENCH, AFTER THE MODEL BY JACQUES GONDOIN, LAST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

The original model for these torchères was designed for Versailles in 1769 by Jacques Gondoin, architect and designer of the Garde-Meuble. Replacing giltwood torchères which decorated the Galerie des Glâces since 1690, twenty-four stands were ordered by Louis XV for the masked ball held in May 1770 to celebrate the marriage of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, to Marie-Antoinette. Infusing variety into the decoration in the gallery, half of the torchères were created in the form of the present lot, the others designed as female figures holding cornucopia. When the Royal Family moved from Versailles to Paris under the supervision of the National Guard in 1789, Louis XVI installed a pair of the putti torchères in his Tuileries bedchamber. In the nineteenth century, when Louis-Philippe refurnished Louis XVI's bedchamber at Versailles, the torchères were included in the decorative scheme, and presently they form part of the furnishings at Versailles.