A PAIR OF EMPIRE GILT AND PATINATED BRONZE AND MARBLE SEVEN-LIGHT CANDELABRA, CIRCA 1810

Sotheby's New York, 20 May 2005, lot 110

H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, vol.I (Munich 1986), p.328 fig.5.2.1

J.-P. Samoyault, Musée national du Château de Fontainebleau, Pendules et bronzes d'ameublement entrés sous le Premier Empire (Paris 1989), no.133 p.156.

Two pairs of candelabra of an identical model, with the bases made entirely of marble and of varying heights, were supplied to the Salon de l'Impératrice at the Château de Fontainebleau in November 1804. They originally formed part of the interior furnishings of the Parisian hôtel particulier of General Moreau in the Rue d'Anjou that was confiscated by the state after Moreau was sent into exile for participating in a conspiracy to remove Napoleon from power. The design is similar to that of a pair designed by the Imperial architects Percier and Fontaine in 1802 for the boudoir of Josephine Bonaparte at the Château de Saint Cloud, and an identical winged Victory holding seven candle arms appears in a sheet of sketches by Percier now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. These candelabra were probably commissioned from Thomire through the marchand mercier Lignereux. A catalogue album of drawings by Thomire in the Hermitage, St Petersburg includes a design for an identical candelabra in the form of a winged victory but with a different base.