A PAIR OF EMPIRE ORMOLU, PATINATED-BRONZE AND PINK GRANITE FIVE-LIGHT CANDELABRA

The design for the female supports, classically draped and holding in one hand a laurel wreath, is identical to that of a pair of candelabra delivered by Claude Galle (d. 1815) in 1807 for the chambre de l'Impératrice at Fontainebleau for which he charged 2500 francs, later reduced to 2400 francs (see J.P. Samoyault, Musée National du château de Fontainebleau: Pendules et bronzes d'ameublement entrés sous le Premier Empire, Paris, 1989, p. 157, cat. 135). Another pair of candelabra with figural supports of the same design is in the Palazzo Reale, Turin (illustrated S. Rasponi et al., Orologi negli arredi del Palazzo Reale di Torino, Turin, 1988, p. 156). While a pair of candelabra with closely related caryatid figures, 1805, is in Queen Caroline's Salon in the Munich Residence (H. Ottomeyer/P. Pröschl et al, Vergoldete Bronzen, München, 1987,p. 333, fig. 5.2.12).