Lot Essay
The motif of a drapery-tied back-plate is first recorded as early as 1756 on a pair of appliques designed by Pierre Contant d'Ivry and supplied by Thomas Germain in 1756 to the duc d'Orléans for the Palais-Royal. Conceived in the late Transitional style the present lot more closely recall a suite of appliques supplied by Quentin-Claude Pitoin in 1777 for M. Amelot, ministre de la maison du Roi (illustrated P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés du XVIIIe Siècle, 1987 p. 89, ill. 94).