CIRCA 1785

The pose and design of the figures on these candelabra closely match the figures in the margin sketch of the 1761 livret of Gabriel de Saint-Aubin  (H.Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen I, Munich, 1986, p.254, fig 4.7.1).  Although they do not match the drawn figures exactly, their derivation from the same source is highly probable. Saint-Aubin's sketch was of a pair of plaster candelabra models exhibited at the Salon in 1761 by Etienne-Maurice Falconet (1716-91), then Director of the Sculpture Studio at the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory (1759-66). These plaster bozetti were intended to be cast in silver by the orfèvre François-Thomas Germain (1726-91) to form part of a commission for the Royal Portuguese Court which was abandoned. 
Germain's cast-models appeared to have instead been utilized by a number of ciseleurs-doreurs, all of which would seem to owe their origins to the 1761 plaster model by Falconet.  Several variations on this design exist and those most closely related to the present lot include a pair in patinated bronze and ormolu sold anonymously at Christie’s, London, 10 December 2009., lot 545 and another pair from the collection of Cécile de Rothschild, sold at Christie's Paris, 11 March 2003, lot 391.  A third example entirely in ormolu is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (C. Smith ed., Catalogue of the Jones Collection Part II, London, 1924, pl.45).