A PAIR OF LARGE FRENCH ORMOLU FIVE-LIGHT WALL APPLIQUES

Finely cast with lion masks and cockerels, these imposing wall lights are modeled after a set of eight which originally designed for the Palais des Tuileries and ultimately described in an inventory taken in the apartments of the duc d'Angoulême in the Tuileries in 1826:
"Salon de reception. 1544. Huit girandoles á cinq lumières (sic) en bronze cizelé et doré ormoulu, lyre, feuilles de chêne, glands, mufles de lion, guirlandes de lauriers, croisées a rubans, Haut 1,30... 3000."
The original lights lights were again inventoried in 1833 with the room identified as the 'appartement du roi, Louis Philippe.' Upon a final inventory of the Tuileries, before it was eventually sacked, the set was placed in Napoleon III's dining room: "313. Huit bras, bronze cizelé et doré, style Louis XVI, a 5 lumières sur gradations, forme de lyre..." A nearly identical pair bearing the Tuileries inventory mark was sold in The Collection of Lily and Edmond J. Safra, Sotheby's, New York, 4 November 2005, lot 324. Furthermore, a set of four sold Christie's, Paris, 4 November 2015, lot 70 (€385,500), recorded in 1807 in the dining room of Josephine Bonaparte in the Tuileries.