A FRENCH WHITE-PAINTED AND PARCEL-GILT CENTER TABLE

This elegant pair of à l'antique candelabra along with lot 185, are in the form of winged figures of Nike or Victory. They relate closely to a drawing for a candelabra by the architect Charles Percier (illustrated here) and were part of a commission to furnish Empress Josephine's bedroom at the Château de Saint Cloud.

The model is particularly associated with the work of Pierre-Philippe Thomire, the most famous bronzier of the Empire period who supplied extensive amounts of bronzes d'ameublement for Napoleon's Palaces. Examples of this model by him are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and in a private collection, Bayreuth (ilustrated in H. Ottomeyer, P. Prsöchel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 328, figs. 5.2.2 and 5.2.4.

Percier and his collaborator Pierre-François-Lèonard Fontaine illustrated similar figures of winged Victory in their influential Recueil des Décorations Intrieures, first published in its entirety in 1812. They appear on a capital of an interior executed for the King of Spain, plate 62, or in the ceiling of the throne room in the château de Saint Cloud, plate 47.