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Lot Essay
These superb wall lights, with their sinuous, confident lines and sumptuous organic form, exhibit all the hallmarks of the mature rococo style of the 1740s and reflect the Louis XV 'pittoresque' style popularised by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier and Nicolas Pineau . They share many characteristics with the oeuvre of perhaps the greatest bronzier of the period, Jacques Caffiéri (1678-1755).
Three pairs of wall lights displaying many similarities to these, particularly the vigorously asymmetrical backplates and audaciously twisting arms, formed part of the superb bronzes d'ameublement supplied to Madame Infante, Louis XV's eldest daughter, to furnish the Palazzo at Colorno following her marriage to the Duke of Parma (two pairs are in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, illustrated in D. Alcouffe et al., Gilt Bronzes in the Louvre, Paris, 2004, pp. 54-5, cat. 19, a further pair was sold from the collection of Hubert de Givenchy, Christie's, Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 34, FF 1,332,000; all of these are identified through Colorno inventory numbers). These have been convincingly attributed to Caffiéri on the basis of the celebrated chandeliers signed by Caffiéri which were part of the same commission, now in the Wallace Collection, London, one of which has the consecutive inventory number to the Givenchy wall lights.
The pierced rocaille ornament is a particular leitmotif of Caffiéri’s oeuvre, and recurs on a related pair of wall lights, formerly in the collection of Antenor Patiño, sold Christie’s, New York, 20 May 1998, lot 29 ($255,500), and further pairs sold from a European private collection, Christie’s, London, 10 July 2014 (£55,000) and from the Alexander Collection, Christie’s, New York, 30 April 1999, lot 139 ($63,000). The strikingly naturalistic ornament of the Stafford wall lights, for instance the spiraling shell-form nozzles, places them slightly earlier in Caffiéri’s oeuvre, to around 1740, when the rococo style was its very height.
Three pairs of wall lights displaying many similarities to these, particularly the vigorously asymmetrical backplates and audaciously twisting arms, formed part of the superb bronzes d'ameublement supplied to Madame Infante, Louis XV's eldest daughter, to furnish the Palazzo at Colorno following her marriage to the Duke of Parma (two pairs are in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, illustrated in D. Alcouffe et al., Gilt Bronzes in the Louvre, Paris, 2004, pp. 54-5, cat. 19, a further pair was sold from the collection of Hubert de Givenchy, Christie's, Monaco, 4 December 1993, lot 34, FF 1,332,000; all of these are identified through Colorno inventory numbers). These have been convincingly attributed to Caffiéri on the basis of the celebrated chandeliers signed by Caffiéri which were part of the same commission, now in the Wallace Collection, London, one of which has the consecutive inventory number to the Givenchy wall lights.
The pierced rocaille ornament is a particular leitmotif of Caffiéri’s oeuvre, and recurs on a related pair of wall lights, formerly in the collection of Antenor Patiño, sold Christie’s, New York, 20 May 1998, lot 29 ($255,500), and further pairs sold from a European private collection, Christie’s, London, 10 July 2014 (£55,000) and from the Alexander Collection, Christie’s, New York, 30 April 1999, lot 139 ($63,000). The strikingly naturalistic ornament of the Stafford wall lights, for instance the spiraling shell-form nozzles, places them slightly earlier in Caffiéri’s oeuvre, to around 1740, when the rococo style was its very height.