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Lot Essay
The model for these unusual wall lights, with their twisted vine backplates, is conceived in the late Transitional style of the 1770s and its ribbon-tied cresting and reeded branches recall the wall-lights supplied by Quentin-Claude Pitoin in 1777 for M. Amelot, ministre de la maison du Roi (illustrated in P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés du XVIIIe Siècle, France, 1987, p. 89, ill. 94).
18th century versions of this model include a pair was sold from the Lehmann Collection in Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 4-5 June 1925, lot 92; another pair, probably the same, was sold from the collection of Jaime Ortiz-Patiño, Sotheby's, New York, 20 May 1992, lot 38; and two sets of four were sold from the collection of Wendell Cherry, 20 May 1994, lots 39-40. Four further wall-lights of this model, probably one of the sets from the Cherry sale, are discussed in Partridge, Recent Acquisitions 1996, London, no.44, p.107.
18th century versions of this model include a pair was sold from the Lehmann Collection in Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 4-5 June 1925, lot 92; another pair, probably the same, was sold from the collection of Jaime Ortiz-Patiño, Sotheby's, New York, 20 May 1992, lot 38; and two sets of four were sold from the collection of Wendell Cherry, 20 May 1994, lots 39-40. Four further wall-lights of this model, probably one of the sets from the Cherry sale, are discussed in Partridge, Recent Acquisitions 1996, London, no.44, p.107.