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An extremely rare and superb quality pair of Empire gilt bronze candlesticks attributed to Claude Galle, each with a circular drip-pan and vase-shaped nozzle cast with trelliswork panels and gadrooning supported on three Roman soldiers’ heads, each wearing plumed helmets and draped cloaks around their shoulders above a circular tapering stem cast with panels of overlapping leaves, trelliswork and centred by acanthus sprays, the stem on three pairs of human feet wearing sandals upon a spreading circular base cast with a stiff leaf border
Paris, date circa 1805
Height 31 cm. each.
Literature: Hans Ottomeyer and Peter Pröschel, “Vergoldete Bronzen”, 1986, p. 326, pls. 5.1.6 and 5.1.7, respectively illustrating a comparable candlestick of circa 1810 with three Greco-Roman female herms and a stem supported on human feet and a design from a sheet in a trade catalogue of circa 1810, now in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, for a similar candlestick with Egyptian female caryatid busts, a fluted stem and three pairs of human feet but with less ornamentation and a ball-shaped nozzle.
These superb quality candlesticks appear to be of unique design but one which compares closely to the work of the leading Empire fondeur-ciseleur Claude Galle (1759-1815), whose oeuvre is closely associated with candlesticks that integrated three sets of heads and conforming human feet. In overall form they are very similar to the “2 paire [flambeaux] à trois têtes”, each with female classical heads and conforming human feet, which were supplied by Galle to the Imperial palace at Fontainebleau in 1804 (illustrated in Jean-Pierre Samoyault, “Pendules et bronzes d’ameublement entrés sous le Premier Empire; Catalogue des Collections de Mobilier, Musée National du Château de Fontainebleau”, 1989, p. 175).
As one of the leaders in his field, Galle was probably the main supplier of candlesticks and with Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751-1843), the main supplier of candelabra to the Imperial palaces at Fontainebleau, Compiègne, Rambouillet, Saint-Cloud as well as Les Trianons, the Tuileries, as well as Monte Cavallo in Rome and Stupinigi near Turin.
A number of similar candlesticks made either in gilt and patinated bronze or in silver were made during the first decade of the nineteenth century. However the majority featured female heads, either of ancient Egyptian or Greco-Roman inspiration. Although the inclusion of Roman soldiers or gladiator heads are extremely rare, in subject matter they accord well with the style of their day, relating to other Empire works of art that included such figures from Antiquity, such as an ‘Oath of Horatii’ clock with case by Galle in the Residenz, Munich as well as ‘The Rape of the Sabines’ clock, again with a magnificent figural case by Galle in the British Royal Collection, both respectively illustrated in Ottomeyer and Pröschel, op. cit, p. 367, pls. 5.13.5 and 5.13.6.
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