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

These spectacular candelabra, in the form of winged figures of Nike or Victory, are comparable in design to a drawing for similar candelabra by the architect Charles Percier as part of a commission to furnish Empress Josephine's bedroom at the Château de Saint Cloud, illustrated in M. L. Myers, French Architectural and Ornament Drawings of the Eighteenth Century, New York, 1991, pp. 157-160, cat. 98a.
This model is particularly associated with the work of Pierre-Philippe Thomire, the most famous bronzier of the Empire period who supplied extensive amounts of bronzes d'ameublement for Napoleon's royal residences. Examples of this model by Thomire are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and in a private collection, Bayreuth, and illustrated in H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 328, figs. 5.2.2 and 5.2.4.