BY FERDINAND BARBEDIENNE, DESIGNED BY LOUIS-CONSTANT SÉVIN, PARIS, CIRCA 1880

These brûle-parfums perfectly encapsulate the artistic and industrial ambitions of the Second Empire. Designed by Louis-Constant Sévin (d. 1888), who was sculpteur-ornemaniste to the bronzier Ferdinand Barbedienne (d. 1892), this model was considered one of Sévin’s masterpieces and is illustrated alongside a handful of other works in an effusive tribute in Revue des Arts Décoratifs (op. cit. pp. 161-176). The design is broadly Neo-Grec in inspiration with the atlas figures drawn from antiquity, they are however coupled with brightly coloured rinceaux-inald champlevé enamels, a process perfected by Barbedienne to equal in quality cloisonné imported from the orient. The model is also known in plain bronze doré and in white marble and malachite. To create such magnificent objects, Sévin was allowed to purchase the finest materials with little if any consideration of cost.

Maison Barbedienne under the direction of its founder, Ferdinand Barbedienne (d. 1892), was the preeminent manufacture de bronzes d’art in Paris which employed the finest craftsmen to produce outstanding bronzes. Louis-Constant Sévin worked as chief designer at Barbedienne for 23 years from 1855 and created the most varied and innovative objects for Barbedienne’s awe-inspiring displays at the international exhibitions and for his most prestigious commissions, 'les bronzes du roi de Hollande, les bains du roi des Belges, la chapelle et le tombeau du prince Albert à Frogmore, les candelabres du Kremlin, les portes du tombeau de Nicolas à Odessa…’ (op. cit., p. 174).