BY VICTOR PAILLARD, THIRD QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

Victor Paillard (d. 1886), one of the best-known bronziers of the Napoleon III period, apprenticed as a ‘bronze chaser’ under Jean-François Denière, the celebrated bronzier who supplied works to the château de Fontainebleau, the Grand Trianon at Versailles and had been favoured by Carlos IV, King of Spain. His training was generously afforded by the comte de Guzman who recognised Paillard’s enterprising spirit. By the 1830s he had established his own foundry for Bronze d'art et d'ameublement at 105 boulevard Beaumarchais and 6 rue Saint-Claude, first showing his own work at the Exposition des produits de l'industrie in 1839; thereafter he regularly exhibited at the Expositions universelles during the third quarter of the 19th century. By 1855 he was employing about a hundred workmen and was able to offer his clients hundreds of models in bronze and zinc imitations. His commissions and accolades were seemingly boundless, including a commission for a dressing table for Empress Eugénie, bronze furniture mounts for the haute-luxe firm of Fourdinois, the Prix Croatzier and a médaille d‘or at the Paris 1867 Exposition universelle (C. Payne, Paris Furniture: The Luxury Market of the 19th Century, London, 2018, p. 483).

These wall-lights most closely resemble a pair with ribbon-tied quiver backplates of circa 1785 now at Fontainebleau and illustrated in J.-P. Samoyault, Pendules et Bronzes d'Ameublement entrés sous le Premier empire, Paris, 1989, p. 129, no. 95. The design of the quiver relates closely to the set of six appliques made under the direction of Jean Hauré by Forrestier provided for the Grand Trianon. A closely related pair of wall-lights of the same design and dimensions, called Louis XVI period at the time, was sold anonymously, Sotheby's, Paris, 23 June 2004, lot 73.