A PAIR OF EMPIRE ORMOLU, PATINATED BRONZE AND ROUGE GRIOTTE MARBLE CANDELABRA

These candelabra relate to a design by the architect Charles Percier as part of a commission to furnish the Bedchamber of Impératrice Joséphine's at the château de Saint-Cloud (ill. in M.L. Myers, French Architectural and Ornament Drawings of the Eighteenth Century, New York, 1991, pp. 157-160, cat. 98).
Candelabra of this model have been related to the oeuvres of foremost bronziers such as Pierre Victor Ledure - to whom Ottomeyer and Pröschel attribute a virtually identical pair now in the Residenz Elligen, Germany (ill. H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel, et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 391, fig. 5.17.4) - but also to Pierre-Philippe Thomire or to Claude Galle, who delivered a closely related pair for the Petit Trianon in 1809 (ill. D. Ledoux-Lebard, Versailles, le Petit Trianon, Paris, 1989, p.105, no.149). Closely related examples sold at auction include a pair sold at Sotheby's, Amsterdam, "The Toebosch Collection", 11 April 2005, lot 185.