Prunkvoller Bronze Doré Girandole Leuchter

This stun­ning Can­de­labra cap­ti­vates with the extra­or­di­nary, extreme­ly detailed exe­cu­tion. Raised from a base with vivid­ly cast rocailles, balustrades, shell shapes, grass­es, stones, leaves ans blos­soms, includ­ing a lion, bear and boar look­ing at us, flower gar­lands climb­ing up the shaft merg­ing into a tree trunk, with two chil­dren, a girl and a boy, hold­ing on to the pro­tru­sions. The two chil­dren are extreme­ly fine­ly sculpt­ed. The face and hair are fine­ly chis­eled, the girld is hold­ing flow­ers and fruit in her hands.

The foli­ate dec­o­rat­ed sur­mount of the chil­dren ter­mi­nates in three, fine­ly grass embell­ished can­dle arms. Noz­zles and drip pans are mag­nif­i­cent­ly dec­o­rat­ed with shells, orna­ments and foliage.

To be high­light­ed is the snake, wind­ing around the branch count­less times. Head and scales are par­tic­u­lar­ly fine­ly executed.

It shows extra­or­di­nary skills and crafts­man­ship to be able to wind the snake around the can­dle arms so many times. 

A large, ful­ly sculpt­ed eagle sits on the top of the high­est arm in the cen­ter as finial.

An absolute mas­ter­work from the sec­ond half of the 19^th cen­tu­ry, which cer­tain­ly leads back to the drafts of Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier.

Juste-Aurèle Meis­son­nier (* 1695 in Turin, † July 31, 1750 in Paris) was a drafts­man, painter, sculp­tor, gold­smith and archi­tect of the French Roco­co. Juste-Aurèle received his train­ing from his father, Eti­enne Meis­son­nier, before mov­ing to Paris, where he worked in a tapes­try fac­to­ry for a num­ber of years. In 1724, he received the roy­al diplo­ma of gold­smiths (brevet de la coopéra­tion des Marchands Orfèvres Joail­liers). From 1726 onwards he was the offi­cial court drafts­man of Louis XV (Dessi­na­teur de la Cham­bre et du Cab­i­net du Roi, and thus fol­lowed in the foot­steps of Jean Bérain the Younger, 1678 – 1726).

He also had the impor­tant task of orga­niz­ing the court fes­ti­vals at the French court, includ­ing the cel­e­bra­tion of the birth of the French heir to the throne in Ver­sailles in 1729. Among many oth­ers, he received com­mis­sions for the fur­nish­ing of the cas­tles of Fontainebleau and Choisy…

A small pair of can­de­labra depict­ing the two chil­dren in the same way is in the col­lec­tion of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of NY.