Offered by Franck Baptiste Paris
Rare pair of candlesticks in marble, finely chiseled and mercury-gilded bronze and Vincennes porcelain flowers.
The royal red Languedoc marble bases are delicately sculpted and imitate rocky mounds on which a Chinese couple in traditional clothing are positioned.
The man, who is visibly a mandarin, is dressed in a qipao and has a shaved head, long mustaches and stretched earlobes.
The woman with pulled back hair is wearing a bun, she is wearing a beautiful dress with puffed sleeves whose collar is lined with fur.
Each character is seated under an arm of lights simulating a tree.
The latter consists of a trunk decorated with branches, gilded bronze leaves and polychrome flowers in Vincennes porcelain.
The top is finished with a cup imitating a corolla and a bobèche simulating an acanthus bud.
Very good state of conservation.
Parisian work from the Louis XV period around 1750-1760.
Dimensions:
Height: 23 cm; Depth: 10 cm, Width: 13 cm
Our opinion :
The rare pair of torches that we are presenting comes straight from the imagination of the painter François Boucher (1703-1770).
The latter produced these numerous drawings for the Beauvais tapestry factory which planned the creation of a large Chinese hanging in the years 1745.
In his fantasized Orient, Boucher positions his characters under umbrellas, he adds to the men he represents with shaved heads, Buddha earlobes or large mustaches, while the women are dressed in fur coats but retain always very European hairstyles.
These drawings were a great success and their engravings by Gabriel Huquier were widely distributed.
This production reflects the taste of a haberdashery merchant who probably gave engravings to his bronzier, before providing him with precious goods such as marble or porcelain flowers for the assembly of our pair of torches.
This production follows the attraction for China which affected France from the beginning of the 18th century.
Our torches were probably intended to sit on a piece of oriental lacquer or martin varnish furniture in the Chinese living room of an important member of the nobility.
These so-called “magots” candlesticks are of the greatest rarity in the inventories of haberdashery merchants.
Several variants are known with seated or active figures, with bronze or marble bases...
Our pair, whose bases are finely sculpted in red marble and whose flowers are of high quality, constitute the luxury version of the model.
