A large and imposing pair of Empire gilt and patinated bronze nine-light candelabra attributed to Pierre-Philippe Thomire, each with a central flared and foliate wrapped candle branch with a vase-shaped nozzle and circular drip-pan surrounded by eight further scrolled and conformingly shaped candle branches issuing from an acanthus ring heading the patinated fluted columnar stem terminated by gilt bronze acanthus leaves on a flared four sided plinth mounted at each corner by winged lions on a concave-sided base with canted corners Paris, date 1810-15 Height 110 cm. each. Literature: Olivier Lefeuel, “Percier et Fontaine” in “Connaissance des Arts”, Paris, 15th June 1954, no. 28, p. 35, illustrating a page from a set of designs by Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine for the Russian Tsar of work in the Louvre and Tuileries, showing a woman’s bedroom with a torchère, which as here has a similar fluted columnar stem with seemingly similar mounts and supported on a very similar base decorated with very similar mounts. Hans Ottomeyer and Peter Pröschel, “Vergoldete Bronzen”, 1986, p. 393, pl. 5.17.11, illustrating a very similar candelabrum but with a differing and far simpler base by Pierre-Philippe Thomire and signed Thomire Paris of circa 1815. Pierre Arizzoli-Clémentel, “The Percier and Biennais Albums in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris”, in the “Burlington Magazine”, March 1998, p. 197, pl. 55, illustrating a design for a related candelabrum by Charles Percier for the Empress Josèphine in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Not only is this magnificent pair of candelabra of great quality and unusually large size but they can be attributed to the preeminent fondeur-ciseleur Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751-1843), whose production included a number of similar candelabra which he often supplied to the Imperial palaces. Variants of the model can be found in the Hôtel Beauharnais, Paris and in Archangelskoje Palace, Leningrad. Furthermore they were almost certainly made after or at least inspired by a design by Napoleon’s chief architect Charles Percier (1764-1838). The attribution to Percier stems from the drawings cited under literature. The design in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (which featured as plate 59 in the 1827 edition of Percier and Fontaine’s “Recueil de Décorations Intérieures”) is altogether far more elaborate in that the flared candle branches are supported on winged deer and though the stem is of a more ornate design the foliate terminals at its base are not dissimilar. As here the four sided plinth is slightly flared and has similarly shaped winged lions at each corner. Interestingly Percier’s design for the plinth was directly inspired by an altar from the Borghese collections now in the Musée du Louvre. The winged lions, which are of an unusual and idiosyncratic design are virtually identical, except for the alignment of the wings, to those appearing on a clock case by Claude Galle (1759-1815) of circa 1805 (illustrated in Ottomeyer and Pröschel, ibid, p. 372, pl. 5.14.2). Interestingly the latter clock compares very closely to a gilt bronze and marble case of the same date with mounts by Thomire et Cie although the monopodia lions there are of slightly differing form (illustrated in Pierre Kjellberg, “Encyclopédie de la Pendule Française du Moyen Age au XXe Siècle”, 1997, p. 368, pl. C).