Girandole With Caryatides Depicted As Female Hermen

The impres­sive, yet del­i­cate Giran­dole, elab­o­rat­ed in Bronze Doré, alter­nate­ly with a mat­te and pol­ished fin­ish, is beau­ti­ful­ly exe­cut­ed with dark green almost black frame. It rais­es from a round chis­elled base with extra­or­di­nary beads and gar­lands dec­o­ra­tion, issu­ing the three her­men cary­atides, who car­ry a vase-shaped ves­sel ter­mi­nat­ing in the vase-shaped cen­ter nozzle.

The three swept and part­ly twist­ed arms are with foli­ate, blos­som dec­o­ra­tion, each ter­mi­nat­ing in a vase-shaped nozzle.

An espe­cial­ly nice details can be found in the draw­ing of a table leg in mat­te, gilt Bronze; most like­ly the two tables, shown at the Lou­vre 1773, acquired by Gouthière for Marie Antoinette

This draft beau­ti­ful­ly shows the table leg dec­o­ra­tion with female her­men and the wind­ing gar­lands below, iden­tic with our giran­dole’s exe­cu­tion (from lit­er­a­ture: H. Ottomey­er / P. Pröschel, Ver­gold­ete Bronzen — Die Bronzear­beit­en des Spät­barock und Klas­sizis­mus, München 1986, page 570, dep. 20)

Gouthière’s exquis­ite cus­tomer cir­cle also reflects his big suc­cess, to name King Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Duchesse de Vileroy, Comte d’Ar­tois, Princess Kin­sky, Duc de Duras, Mar­quis Marigny and oth­er sig­nif­i­cant per­son­al­i­ties of his time.

Lit­er­a­ture: H. Ottomey­er / P. Pröschel, Ver­gold­ete Bronzen — Die Bronzear­beit­en des Spät­barock und Klas­sizis­mus, München 1986; Part I, p. 208 (sec­tion XXV, a giran­dole by P. Gouthière), p. 258 dep. 4.7.10 and p. 286f. (dep. 4.15.1 to 4.15.6, very sim­i­lar mod­els of giran­doles); Part II, p. 561 – 642 Biog­ra­phy Pierre Gouthière, p. 579 dep. 20. (s. below); Pierre Gouthière, Vir­tu­ose Gilder at the French Court, Cat­a­logue Frick Col­lec­tion, S. 286, 287, Fig. 131, 132 (below)