These remarkable candelabra belong to a group whose central female
figure is based on an 1802 design by Charles Percier for a console table with uprights in the form of an almost identical female caryatid (illustrated in H. Ottomeyer/P. Pröschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 336, fig. 5.3.1). A console table inspired by this design was delivered by Thomire and Duterme,possibly before 1806, to LeBrun, troisième Consul and later prince architresorier de l'Empire which is now in the Grand Trianon (see D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Grand Trianon, Meubles et Objets d'Art, 1975, vol. I, pp. 20-21). The Grand Trianon console formed part of Le Brun's furnishings in the Pavillon de Flore, Tuileries and then after 1806 in the hôtel de Noailles. A pair of candelabra with virtually identical figures is in the nouveau cabinet de travail on the ground floor at Pavlovsk (see Pavlovsk, Palace and Park, 1976, pp.176, 178 and 180). These candelabra were probably supplied to Czar Paul I for St. Michael Castle in St.Petersburg by the marchand-mercier Jérome Culot, who commisioned many of the bronzes from Pierre-Philippe Thomire. Another pair of the Pavlovsk model supplied by Thomire to the Mobilier Impérial, later transferred to the château de Saint-Cloud and now in the Grande Chancellerie de la Légion d'honneur, Hôtel de Salm, Paris,is illustrated in J.M.Humbert,et.al., Egyptomanie, 1994, p.286, no.167. Other pairs are illustrated in Ottomeyer and Pröschel, op.cit., p.336, fig.5.3.3, and sold from the collection of M.Hubert de Givenchy, Christie's Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 39.Other examples of the model offered here include a pair in a private collection illustrated in Humbert op.cit., p.286, fig.2, a pair appearing in a picture by Fedotov illustrated in M. Praz, An Illustrated History of Furnishing, 1964,p.280,fig. 260 and a pair with three candlearms sold Christie's London,31 May 1962, lot 80.