LATE 20TH CENTURY

The design of these majestic candelabra, with winged figures of Victory holding aloft the candlearms, probably derives from the celebrated drawing in an album of designs by Percier and Fontaine in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (illustrated in M.L. Myers, French Architectural and Ornament Drawings of the Eighteenth Century, New York, 1992, cat. 98, pp. 157-8). One particular sheet features a closely related winged Victory candelabrum, and an inscription indicates that this and other pieces on the sheet were destined for Empress Josephine's boudoir at Château Saint-Cloud, thus establishing a strong connection between Percier and Fontaine and the design of the closely related candelabra supplied to Napoleon I for Château Saint-Cloud sold Christie's New York, 22 October 2003, lot 730.