Pair of « Rams » Perfume Burners attr. to Maison Millet, France Circa 1870

Provenance : Michahelles Collection, Hamburg

Beautiful pair of Louis XVI style perfume burners in fluorite with elegant chiseled and gilded bronze mount. The lid surmounted by a gilded bronze seed rests on a frieze of beaded posts surmounting an openwork gallery. The body, of ovoid shape, is circled by a ribonned laurel frieze and ends with foliage centered by a pine cone. Decorated with three mounts topped with ram’s heads and ending with foliage hooves, they rest on a concave shaped tripod base, centered with a flower bud, and with cut sides adorned with flowers.

Renowned for the quality of its chiseling and the choice of materials, the Millet firm had a large workshop with many workers, using its own bronze models and enjoyed collaborations with famous sculptors and bronze-casters such as Claude Marioton.

Biography
The firm of Théodore Millet was founded in 1853. A very talented specialist in 18th Century reproductions, Millet produced furniture and artistic bronzes of the highest quality. He was one of the few cabinet-makers to obtain authorisation from the Château de Versailles to make in 1902 a replica of Queen Marie-Antoinette’s great jewel cabinet. As an artist of great merit and Specialising in « meubles et bronzes d’art, genre ancien et moderne », Millet obtained the highest rewards such as the Gold medal at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1889 for his first participation, and the Grand Prize at the Universal Exhibition of 1900. The photographic archives show, among the workshops views and the parisian shop, Millet’s stand at the Universal Exhibition in Saint-Louis (US) in 1904. The firm’s influence internationnally is then through its antenna in New-York « Duryea and Potter », 469 fifth avenue, New-Yok. The firm lasted until 1918.