Claude Galle. A pair of Empire giltbronze wall-lights by 1805

Claude Galle (1759-1815) chaser and gilder
A pair of large Empire gilt-bronze four-light wall lights.
Finely chiseled and gilded bronze, with matte and burnished gold finish. The arrow-shaped plate is decorated with a mask of Diana wearing a crescent moon in a radiant sun motif, symbolizing night and day. The four trumpet-shaped arms are held together by a lion mask.
Paris circa 1805.

(Another pair of wall lights available ref 106749)

These wall-lights with arrows, palmette and Diana's head in a sun, are of a fine model, examples of which can be found in many French imperial palaces:

- Two identical pairs of wall lights, made entirely of gilt bronze, were supplied by Galle on the 21th september 1806 for the Grand Reception Room of the French Secretary of State at chateau de Fontainebleau. "quatre bras de cheminée en bronze doré, flèches, têtes de Diane, palmettes et cors de chasses à 4 lumières". (French National Archives, O² 500, d. 2, p. 14).
Reproduced in J.P. Samoyault, Musée national du château de Fontainebleau, Pendules et bronzes d'ameublement entrés sous le Premier Empire, Paris 1989, no. 114, p. 141.
- Two other pairs were also supplied by Galle for the Dining Room of the Grand Trianon at Versailles on the 23rd December 1809: "two pairs of wall-lights with an arrow design, the head of Diana bearing four lights in matt-textured gilt bronze"
- Two other pairs were delivered in 1807 by Ravrio for the Empress's bedroom in Compiègne, and were then placed in the appartement double de prince, where they can still be seen.


Comparative literature
This pair is reproduced and discused in the following books :
- Pierre Arizzoli Clementel, Jean Pierre Samoyault, Le mobilier de Versailles : chefs d’œuvres du XIXe siècle, p. 92
- J.P. Samoyault, Musée national du château de Fontainebleau, Pendules et bronzes d'ameublement entrés sous le Premier Empire, Paris 1989, n°114, p.141.
- Denise Ledoux-Lebard, Inventaire général du musée national de Versailles et des Trianons, Le Grand-Trianon, Meubles et Objets d'art, Éditions des Musées nationaux, Paris, 1975, p. 174.
- Ernest Dumonthier, Les bronzes du Mobilier national, Bronzes d'éclairage et de chauffage, Massin, Paris, pl. 29, ill. 3.
-Hans Ottomeyer et Peter Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen, Tome II, Klinkhardt & Biermann, Munich, 1986, p. 706, fig. 23.


One of the most prominent bronzier of the late Louis XVI and Empire periods, Claude Galle was born in Villepreux near Versailles. He apprenticed in Paris under the founder Pierre Foy, whose daughter he married in 1784. After becoming a master in 1786, Galle took over the workshop upon his father-in-law's death in 1788, which became one of the largest in Paris, employing nearly 400 artisans at the height of its activity. Galle first relocated the workshop to Quai de la Monnaie and then to 60 Rue Vivienne in 1805.

During the Ancien Régime, the "garde-meuble de la couronne" honored him with several commissions, and during the Empire, Galle supplied the majority of the bronzes for furnishing of the Château de Fontainebleau. He was one of the official suppliers to the Imperial Garde Meuble for lighting fixtures, clock boxes, and vases, which he delivered to the palaces of Saint-Cloud, Trianon, the Tuileries, Compiègne, and Rambouillet. He also supplied the Italian palaces of Monte Cavallo in Rome and Stupinigi near Turin.

When he died in 1815, Galle had a pair of identical sconces in his shop (numbered 9326). However, it would seem that the maker of this model may not have been Claude Galle or Ravrio, but another gilder Claude François Rabiat, who also died in 1815, and whose after-death inventory reveals several arms with arrows and Diana's head. It may well have been from this colleague that the usual suppliers to the Garde Meuble Impérial purchased wall-ligths of this model for the palaces.