CIRCA 1770, ATTRIBUTED TO JEAN-JOSEPH DE SAINT-GERMAIN

Of architectural design and incorporating bold swags, this impressive and finely chased pair of wall-lights epitomise the earliest phase of the neoclassical revival of the 1760s, also known as the 'goût grec'. With the difference of further lion mask embellishments, they are closely related to a pair of wall lights attributed to Jean-Joseph de Saint Germain (illustrated in J-D. Augarde, 'Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain Bronzier (1719-1791)', L'Estampille/L'Objet d'Art, December 1996, p. 78, fig. 23.). Elected maître fondeur en terre et en sable in 1748, Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain is predominantly known for his clock cases. Working predominantly in the rocaille style, these were typically composed of elaborate bases which served as supports for exotic animal cases modelled as elephants and rhinoceroses. Towards the end of his career he adopted the increasingly popular neo-classical style or goût grec visible in the offered example, which he most probably discovered as a result of his collaboration with his cousin, the avant-gardist Jean-Louis Prieur (c.1725- c.1785), whose boldly neo-classical designs for bronzes d'ameublement for King Stanislaus II of Poland’s royal palace in Warsaw, were enormously influential in promoting the new taste for antiquity.

The present pair is identical to a series of wall-lights at Grand Duke Pavel Petrovovich’s library in the Palace of Pavlovsk, St. Petersburg, which have been linked to the designs of the equally influential ornemaniste Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-1791), illustrated in E. Ducamp, ed., Pavlovsk The Collections, Paris, 1993, p. 178 and p. 194, figs. 51 and 53.