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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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A very fine pair of Empire silver candlesticks by Jérôme Asselin most probably after a design by Charles Percier, each with a vase-shaped nozzle supported on three Egyptian female caryatid busts above an octagonal stem on three pairs of bare feet upon a stepped circular base Paris, dated 1808-09 Fully hallmarked. Height 30 cm. each. Literature: Hans Ottomeyer and Peter Pröschel, “Vergoldete Bronzen”, 1986, p. 326, pl. 5.1.6, illustrating a similar gilt bronze candlestick with three Egyptian caryatid busts and stems supported on human feet and pl. 5.1.7, illustrating a design of circa 1810 for a similar candlestick with three Egyptian caryatid busts and stems supported on human feet, featured in an album now in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. These fine candlesticks were made by the Parisian silversmith Jérôme Asselin. By 1808 he was based at 44 quai des Orfèvres and was still in practise until at least 1814. Although little is recorded about his life we know that he, like many other silversmiths of the period not only made luxury pieces for domestic use but also for ecclesiastical use. Among pieces for the church Asselin supplied silver to Saint Pierre at Poitou Charentes and a reliquary to Saint-Memmie at Châlons en Champagne. Asselin’s Empire candlesticks with Egyptian caryatid supports were most probably inspired or made after a design by the leading Empire designer Charles Percier (1764-1838). Close comparisons can be drawn with a similar pair with fluted stems designed by Percier for Château de la Malmaison, illustrated in “Château de la Malmaison Texte Historique et Descriptif Dessinés Spécialement pour le Famille Impériale par Percier et Fontaine”. They also compare with a pair attributed to S.-J. Dupezard, 1809-19, (illustrated in Françoise Deflassieux, “Le Guidargus de L’Argenterie Française”, p. 115). Other related examples include a pair of similar sized French silver candlesticks by J-G-A Bompart, formerly owned by the silversmith, Pierre Denis de La Ronde of New Orleans, now in The Historic New Orleans Collection, (illustrated in Wendy A. Cooper, “Classical Taste in America 1800-1840”, 1993, p. 48, pl. 25). The main difference between these and the New Orleans pair is that the latter have additional draped swags below the caryatid busts. Wendy Cooper notes ‘The documented ownership in Boston, Philadelphia and New Orleans of French candlesticks demonstrates how imported objects may have provided a source of inspiration for those by American as well as émigré silversmiths. Both Stephen Girard of Philadelphia and Pierre Denis de La Ronde owned classical columnar silver candlesticks similar to those produced abroad in brass and gilt bronze’. During the mid eighteenth century scholars and connoisseurs were expressing an interest in the arts of ancient Egypt. However it was not until after Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign of 1798 that the wider public began to take notice. The dissemination of the Egyptian style owed much to the illustrated publication in 1802 of “Voyage dans la Basse-et Haute-Egypte” by Baron Dominique Vivant-Denon (1747-1825), who had accompanied Napoleon to Egypt. Denon’s work was filled with drawings and etchings of the most typical elements of ornaments, from sphinxes, caryatids, heads and bodies of mummified or stylised Egyptians with bare feet to palm leaves, tripods and rosettes. Although the Retour d’Egypte was not a true and individual style, it served to enrich the classical repertoire with a new exotic taste for decorative elements and themes drawn from Egyptian art. As such Egyptian motifs and ornaments, which were readily adopted by Percier and Fontaine, soon became one of the hallmarks of the Empire style. |