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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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Louis XVI GILT BRONZE CHENETS A very rare pair of Louis XVI gilt bronze figural chenets, each with a sphinx wearing a saddle-cloth and seated on a tasselled cloth, her beautiful upturned face with coiled hair and beaded choker, the sphinx outstretched in front of a sphere with stylized leaves and surmounted by a smaller ball with looped handle, at the other end on a fluted plinth a ewer with a spirally fluted foot and neck, foliate shaped spout and snake entwined around the angular handle, the base of the ewer with berries and stiff leaves, the whole on a shaped rectangular base Paris, date circa 1775 Height 44 cm, length 40 cm, depth 12 cm. each. These magnificent chenets compare with an earlier pair of circa 1715, each with a sphinx but without the ewer and sphere, formerly owned by the Electorate of Bavaria and placed in the bedroom fireplace in the Residenz and now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich; illustrated in Hans Ottomeyer and Peter Pröschel, “Vergoldete Bronzen”, 1986, p. 71, pl. 1.10.10. Such sphinxes with saddle clothes and espagnolette heads relate to similar figures in the Park at Marly. Further examples can be found at the Château Vaux-le-Vicomte, Champs and Chantilly. Similarly elegant sphinxes with plumed headdresses adorn the base of a French candelabra of circa 1720, formerly owned by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild and now at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, illustrated in Geoffrey de Bellaigue, “The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor”, 1974, vol. II, p. 685. http://www.richardreddingantiques.com/collection/gilt-bronze/louis-xvi-gilt-bronze-chenets |
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