Lot Essay
The combination of sphinxes and elegant rinceau scolls in the fashionable goût étrusque of the 1780's relates to the work of the bronzier François Rémond (maître in 1774). A design for a pair of chenets supplied circa 1780 by Rémond to the princesse de Lamballe with similar sphinxes issuing scrolling foliage is illustrated in H.Ottomeyer/P.Pröschel et al.,Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol.I, p.279, fig.4.12.3. A pair of chenets after this design in the Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, is illustrated op.cit., fig.4.12.4. The motif may ultimately derive from the designs of Giovanni Battista Piranesi,as a similar sphinx with foliage appears in his Diverse Maniere d'adornare i cammini,1769,p.31.
