Pair of candlesticks with goat's head, Louis XVI period

This pair of candlesticks offers a decoration quite characteristic of the neoclassical productions of the end of the reign of Louis XV and the reign of Louis XVI more particularly. It associates gilded bronze and marble in a decorative register developed from the first lights of neoclassicism, exposed by Svend Eriksen in his masterly work "Early neoclassicism". The binet is treated with vegetal ornaments arranged in a frieze (laurel leaves in this case), the ovoid stem, "oval" as it would have been called in the eighteenth century, is crossed by draperies and trimmings that festoon in a Louis XVI register.

The egg is supported by a tripod, this "Athenian" so fashionable that the newspaper "L'Avant Coureur" feels obliged to publish the description, the origin and the meaning in its pages dedicated to fashion, while Joseph-Marie Vien uses it since 1764 in his paintings with subjects treated "à l'Antique".
Here, the tripod is decorated with goat protuberances that we can situate in the early work of the ornamentalist Charles Delafosse, as the legs of goats. These legs are later found in the ornaments of Forty (circa 1786), as well as in the creations of the bronzer François Rémond (they are then doubled).
The tripod rests on a circular marble plinth surrounded by a row of gilt bronze pearls, placed on three spheres constituting the base.

The pair retains its old screws. One of the torches leans to the side (visible on photograph).

Pair of torches with goat protuberances, Carrara marble, gilt bronze, circa 1770-1790.
Size (H x D): 19,5 x 10 cm.