A set of four Italian gilt-bronze candelabra, attributed to Valadier, Rome, late 18th century

Christie's New York, Segoura, 19 Oct 2006, lot 174.

The history of gilt bronze as a medium stretches back to antiquity, and Italy had a strong tradition during the Renaissance and the seventeenth century of producing small to medium-sized figural sculptures in this rather glamorous medium.¹ Despite a common view that eighteenth-century gilt-bronze is an “eminently French discipline”,² excellent examples were often produced across Europe including in Italy by some outstanding workshops like that of Luigi Valadier (1726–1785). Operating in Rome, Valadier ran a sophisticated workshop that produced decorative art of such high quality that he had a strong international clientele – Madame du Barry even ordered some marble, porphyry and gilt-bronze vases for her Versailles apartments (GML 10013.1 and GML 10013.2). Valadier’s life and work has been researched and catalogued in some depth, helped by the survival of many of his drawings and a comprehensive inventory drawn up after his death, and he is one of few eighteenth-century craftsmen to have had a major international monograph exhibition in the 21st century.³

Valadier produced candelabra on several occasions with stems in the form of clustered female busts: pieces of the most famous example, the deser service for Count Braschi in the 1780s, are in the Louvre and sold recently at Replica Shoes ’s as part of the Giordano collection.⁴ There is also an extant drawing by Valadier for a candlestick of very similar form,⁵ and in the 1810 inventory of the Valadier workshop, there was even an entry for “cimase per candelieri a tre teste” [moulds for candlesticks with three heads].⁶

¹ These gilt-bronze works were often after the sculptures of antiquity, the works of contemporary sculptors like Giambologna, or even part of boldly polychromatic sculptures like the silver and gilt-bronze sculpture in the MET (1992.56) or the gilt-bronze and porphyry busts sold at Sotheby’s New York, 27th January 2011, lot 453. The V&A holds a seventeenth-century gilt-bronze that is intriguingly catalogued as a “furniture bronze” (A.71-1956).

² D. Alcouffe et al., Gilt bronzes in the Louvre, Dijon, 2004, p.18.

³ At the Frick Collection and the Borghese in 2018.

⁴ Louvre: MV 1057, MV 854 and MV 867. At auction: Sotheby’s Paris, The Giordano Collection: Une Vision Muséale, 26 November 2024, lot 38.

⁵ The drawing: A. González-Palacios, Luigi Valadier, New York, 2018, p.237, fig 5_27. There is also a Valadier drawing for a similar candlestick held in the Victoria and Albert Museum (D.1532-1898).

⁶ Reproduced in T. L. M. Vale (ed.), The Art of the Valadiers, Turin, 2017, p.136.