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

These candelabra, with Apollo and Diana personified as winged Victory figures, are conceived in the Roman manner popularised by Charles Percier and P. F. L. Fontaine's, Recueil de Décorations Intérieures, 1801. Celebrating the sun-deity Apollo and the lunar-deity Diana, the Victory figures of these candelabra are derived from an 1802 design by Percier for the furnishing of the boudoir of Josephine Bonaparte at the Château de Saint-Cloud (see, H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel, et. al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 328, ill. 5.2.1). Related winged female figures executed by the celebrated Parisian bronzier-ciseleur Pierre-Philippe Thomire (elected maître-fondeur in 1772) are found on candelabra in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (op. cit. H. Ottomeyer, p. 329).