387

Pair of French Rococo-Style Gilt-Bronze Candelabra

mid-19th century, after the 1734/35 model by Juste-Aurele Meissonnier (1695-1750), the robust acanthus standard above a swirling base draped with rose garlands and surmounted by an intricately branching superstructure with six arms decorated en suite, each terminating and surrounding a central flambeau-form candle nozzle.
h. 22", dia. 18-1/4"

Notes: Juste-Aurele Meissonnier was born in Turin on March 17, 1695, the son of second-generation French Provencal goldsmith Etienne Meissonnier II (1660-1746). None of the elder Meissonnier's work survived numerous later melting campaigns, but contemporaneous records show numerous commissions to the Court of Savoy, including a 1726 crucifix from King Victor Amedeo II to Pope Benedict XIII. He was also noted as both a sculptor and designer, and it is undoubtedly under his tutelage that Juste-Aurele learned his craft.
His earliest commissions were as a die engraver for the Turin mint, the success of which led to his employ in Paris to assist in the creation by the Royal French Mint a series of medals commemorating the reign of Louis XIV. His later patrons included Madame le Duchesse, Louise Francoise de Bourbon, and her son Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon, for whom he executed a monumental wine cooler in 1723. He created the gold hilts for the marriage of Louis XV in 1725, and an enormous (120 cm x 120 cm) silver reliquary for the church of St. Aignan in Orleans in 1730.
He was appointed designer of the King's Cabinet in 1726, and expanded his design virtuosity to include stage sets, painting, case furniture and architecture (such as designs for the facades of the Palace of the Order of Saint Esprit and St. Sulpice in Paris).
There is but a single surviving piece - a gold and lapis lazuli box for Marie-Anne de Baviere-Neubourg, widow of Charles II of Spain - which bears Meissonnier's mark as a goldsmith. Like his father, few of his works escaped the melting pots that financed France's later wars and revolutions. (The St. Aignan reliquary, for instance, was destroyed in the revolutionary fervor of 1792.) However, several contemporaneous pieces executed by other artists from Meissonnier's designs are still extant, including a 1727 standing clock in the Galerie Gismondi, Paris, porcelains attributed to him from Chantilly, and the extravagant silver tureen by Bonnestrenne & Adnet in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
These designs are the height of rococo extravagance; virtually no part of them is not ornamented, decorated with naturalistic motifs combining both precise realism and wild artifice. The effect is one of untamed nature in motion. Engravings of his designs were collected around 1730 into Livres d'ornements en trente pieces, republished and expanded in 1748, two years before Meissonnier's death on July 31, 1750. This second edition contains the original design for the present lot as plate 31. Contemporaneous examples in gilt bronze are conserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and in silver at Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.

mid-19th century, after the 1734/35 model by Juste-Aurele Meissonnier (1695-1750), the robust acanthus standard above a swirling base draped with rose garlands and surmounted by an intricately branching superstructure with six arms decorated en suite, each terminating and surrounding a central flambeau-form candle nozzle.
h. 22", dia. 18-1/4"

  • Notes: Juste-Aurele Meissonnier was born in Turin on March 17, 1695, the son of second-generation French Provencal goldsmith Etienne Meissonnier II (1660-1746). None of the elder Meissonnier's work survived numerous later melting campaigns, but contemporaneous records show numerous commissions to the Court of Savoy, including a 1726 crucifix from King Victor Amedeo II to Pope Benedict XIII. He was also noted as both a sculptor and designer, and it is undoubtedly under his tutelage that Juste-Aurele learned his craft.
    His earliest commissions were as a die engraver for the Turin mint, the success of which led to his employ in Paris to assist in the creation by the Royal French Mint a series of medals commemorating the reign of Louis XIV. His later patrons included Madame le Duchesse, Louise Francoise de Bourbon, and her son Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon, for whom he executed a monumental wine cooler in 1723. He created the gold hilts for the marriage of Louis XV in 1725, and an enormous (120 cm x 120 cm) silver reliquary for the church of St. Aignan in Orleans in 1730.
    He was appointed designer of the King's Cabinet in 1726, and expanded his design virtuosity to include stage sets, painting, case furniture and architecture (such as designs for the facades of the Palace of the Order of Saint Esprit and St. Sulpice in Paris).
    There is but a single surviving piece - a gold and lapis lazuli box for Marie-Anne de Baviere-Neubourg, widow of Charles II of Spain - which bears Meissonnier's mark as a goldsmith. Like his father, few of his works escaped the melting pots that financed France's later wars and revolutions. (The St. Aignan reliquary, for instance, was destroyed in the revolutionary fervor of 1792.) However, several contemporaneous pieces executed by other artists from Meissonnier's designs are still extant, including a 1727 standing clock in the Galerie Gismondi, Paris, porcelains attributed to him from Chantilly, and the extravagant silver tureen by Bonnestrenne & Adnet in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
    These designs are the height of rococo extravagance; virtually no part of them is not ornamented, decorated with naturalistic motifs combining both precise realism and wild artifice. The effect is one of untamed nature in motion. Engravings of his designs were collected around 1730 into Livres d'ornements en trente pieces, republished and expanded in 1748, two years before Meissonnier's death on July 31, 1750. This second edition contains the original design for the present lot as plate 31. Contemporaneous examples in gilt bronze are conserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and in silver at Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.
  • Condition: **In overall very good condition with an attractive gilt surface. The cluster of candle arms can lift out, as well as the finial candle holder, after a rod through the base is taken out to dismantle the arms. The cluster of arms is one unit (not separate arms).

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