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A very fine pair of late Louis XVI gilt and patinated bronze and vert de mer marble five-light candelabra after a celebrated model by François Rémond, each formed as a classical female wearing a diaphanous robe with arms raised toward a wreath-tied fluted columnar shaft supported on a tripod base, the raised shaft issuing five scrolled branches around a central candelabrum stem terminated by a decorative finial, each candle branch with a vase-shaped nozzle decorated with palmettes and palm-leafs, the tripod base headed by rams's head masks hung with fruiting and foliate swags and terminated by recumbent winged sphinxes, each candelabrum and figure on a vert de mer marble pedestal with rounded ends mounted with gilt bronze ribbon-tied oval medallions with figurative reliefs and bordered at the sides with ribbon-tied floral swags, each on a later faux marble and parcel-gilt wooden base
Paris, date circa 1800
Height excluding fitments 100 cm, height including base 136 cm. each.
Literature: Peter Hughes,'The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Furniture'Â, 1996, vol. III, pp. pp. 1283-1286, no. 254 (F156-7), illustrating and describing a very similar pair of candelabra of circa 1800 attributed by Charles Baulez to François Rémond in the Wallace Collection, London.
These superb candelabra are after a celebrated model, by François Rémond (1747-1812), which Charles Baulez dates to circa 1785 and for which a drawing for one of the figures survives in a Parisian private collection. The drawing suggests that the female figure should be tying a gilt bronze ribbon around the junction of the candle branches, which would explain why the two figures hold their hands in such a position. The drawing differs very little from the pair in the Wallace Collection as well as the present pair except in the detail of the nozzles. While the original model dates to circa 1785 the present pair features palmette and palm-leaf nozzles of a design that Rémond introduced in about 1800. Earlier examples, such as a pair sold in Paris 1891 had nozzles bordered with swags of gilt bronze pearls.
The present candelabra probably date slightly after those in the Wallace Collection based on a number of aspects, such as the presence of letters to various elements as well as the quality of the patinated bronze figures. However earlier techniques are used notably mercury gilding. These models proved very popular and were known to have been reproduced in Rémond's workshop during the late eighteenth century and also as after-casts during the next century. An example of this continuation of Rémond's models is seen in another pair of Restauration candelabra made after the celebrated model supplied by Rémond to the comte 'Artois for his Cabinet Turc at the Palais du Temple, sold from Longleat, by Christie's, London, 13-14th June 2002, lot 307.
François Rémond was one of the leading Parisian bronziers of his day. The son of a voiturier or carriage-maker, Rémond began an apprenticeship with the doreur Pierre-Antoine Vial in 1763 and eleven years later was received as a maître-fondeur; he rapidly rose in prominence so that by 1786 he enjoyed the fourth highest turnover out of over 800 Parisian bronziers. Working as both a fondeur-ciseleur as well as a doreur he was able to exercise considerable artistic control over his output. Rémond worked extensively for the marchand-merciers Dominique Daguerre and subsequently Martin-Eloi Lignereux through whom he supplied the cream of society, counting among them Marie-Antoinette, the comte d'Artois, the duc de Penthièvre, the comte d'Adhémar and Princesse Kinsky.
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