A PAIR OF FRENCH SILVER-PLATED FIVE-LIGHT CANDELABRA

The model for these candelabra in the French neo-classical style was created around 1795 in bronze. A pair with three branches from the collection of Pauline Borghese, now in the British Government at the British Embassy in Paris, were purchased in 1815 by the Duke of Wellington. Further examples are in Schloss Homburg, Hesse, and illustrated in Léon de Groeber, Decorative Arts in Europe, 1790-1850, p. 171, displayed on a console made for King Jerome, the brother of Napoleon and Pauline Borghese. A third pair can be found in the Palacio Real de Aranjuez, near Madrid; while the only example with five lights is at Schloss Nymphenburg, Munich, where they lack the torches.