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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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A very fine pair of Louis XIV gilt bronze two-light wall-lights, each surmounted by an asymmetrical foliate and scallop-shell finial above a C-scroll, foliate and rocaille backplate centred by a Zephyr-mask issuing two asymmetrical deeply conforming S-scrolled acanthus wrapped branches, the upper branch terminating in a gadrooned drip-pan and fluted vase-shaped nozzle, the lower branch terminating in a foliate cast drip-pan and foliate vase-shaped nozzle, above a foliate and floral terminal Paris, date circa 1725 Height 42 cm. each. One of a pair of very similar wall-lights is illustrated in Hans Ottomeyer and Peter Pröschel, “Vergoldete Bronzen”, 1986, p. 67, pl. 1.9.23. The writers note however that although the latter work is stamped with a crowned c-mark of 1749, it should be dated to about 1725, at which time a number of other wall-lights featured similarly distinctive asymmetrically aligned branches. Similar mask heads appeared in later wall-lights, notably on a pair by Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain (1719-91) of 1745 in Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin (illustrated in Ottomeyer and Pröschel, op. cit., p. 527, pl. 3). |