AFTER THE MODEL BY PHILIPPE CAFFIERI, A FINE PAIR OF LATE 18...

Estimate

£3,000 - £5,000

AFTER THE MODEL BY PHILIPPE CAFFIERI, A FINE PAIR OF LATE 18TH CENTURY FRENCH LOUIS XV GILT ORMOLU AND PATINATED BRONZE FIGURAL CANDELABRA
With cherubs seated on a rocky base, one blowing a conch, shell the one holding his hands aloft issuing three acanthus branches with fluted vase shaped nozzles decorated with stiff leaves, raised on a stepped base with fluted guilloché and leaf decoration, later drilled.
(h 46cm x d 16cm x w 32cm)

N.B. This model was especially prized by English collectors, and many of the surviving examples in English country house collections were most likely sold by the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre, successor to Poirier, who travelled to London in 1787 at the invitation of the Prince Regent. The rights to the model may originally have belonged to Poirier, who in 1770 supplied Madame du Barry with “une paire de girandoles à trois branches en bronze doré d’or moulu ornées de figures de porcelaine de France” for the sum of 624 livres.
The candelabra model exists in two principal variants, of which the present pair represents the more familiar type (see H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. II, p. 156, fig. 3.2.2, where an attribution to Philippe Caffiéri is proposed). The alternative version depicts two putti with identical but opposing hand positions. A pair of this latter type, formerly in the collection of Baron de Rothschild and later in the Wildenstein collection, was sold from the collection of Mr. Akram Ojjeh at Sotheby’s Monaco, 25 June 1979, lot 51. Examples of both variants were also included in the collection of Hubert de Givenchy and sold at Christie’s Monaco, 4 December 1993, lots 5 and 6; the latter had previously been sold by the Trustees of Lord Hillingdon’s Heirlooms Settlement at Sotheby’s London, 6 July 1979, lot 164.