A PAIR OF REGENCE ORMOLU TWO-BRANCH WALL LIGHTS

With their delicate back-plates with youths holding branches, these elegant wall-lights are superb examples of precious gilt bronzes d’ameublement of the Régence and early Louis XV periods. The design was probably inspired by an engraving by Gille-Marie Oppenord (d. 1742), which is illustrated in the Oeuvres de Gille Marie Oppenord ... contenant différents fragments d'architecture, et d'ornements, Paris, circa 1725, vol. VI, plate CV. A pair of similar ‘enfant-terme’ wall lights is in the Louvre, featuring a similar tapering boss with crossed garlands (ill. in P. Verlet, les Bronzes dorés français du XVIIIè siècle, p. 89, fig. 92). Another similar pair is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (ill. F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, vol. III, New York, 1970, p. 75, figs. 307a and b). The Louvre wall lights were possibly executed by Charles Cressent, maître-sculpteur in 1714. Cressent (1685-1768) ran one of the most important workshops in Paris between 1719 and 1757. Son of the sculpteur du Roi, François Cressent, he trained as a sculptor and was elected maître-sculpteur of the Saint-Luc Académie on August 14, 1714. In 1719, Cressent married the widow of the cabinet-maker Joseph Poitou, and thus gained access to the cabinet-making trade. Shortly after, he was appointed ébéniste ordinaire des palais de SAR Monseigneur le Duc d'Orleans, Régent du royaume.