A PAIR OF AUSTRIAN ORMOLU FOUR-LIGHT CANDELABRA

The present candelabra, conceived in complex and time-consuming repoussé technique, relate in chasing finish and detail of the ornament to various items generally accepted as Viennese-work, such as a pair of vases, offered, Christie’s London, 3 December 2014, lot 19. This technique is more closely connected to the decoration of gold and silver and interestingly, during the 18th Century, several Viennese bronziers emerged who were also recorded as goldsmiths. Director of the Akademie der bildenen kunste, Anton Domanöck (1713-1779) is known to have supplied a steel and gilt-bronze gueridon with a petrified wood top to Marie Antoinette in 1770, which remains on display at Versailles. Ignaz Joseph Würth (d. 1792), was a member of a prominent Viennese family of goldsmiths who supplied the Austrian Imperial family and whose signature appears on the gilt-bronze mounts of a pair of petrified wood urns, initially commissioned by Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa but bequeathed to her son-in-law Louis XVI upon her death in 1780, which are now in the Petit Trianon (W. Koeppe, Vienna Circa 1780: An Imperial Service Residcovered, New York, 2010, p. 22, cat. 6).