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Rare pair of Louis XVI style wall-lights in chiseled and gilded bronze and marble. They are each composed of a barrel made of acanthus leaves supporting a truncated vase in Bleu Turquin marble decorated with a garland of laurel leaves and a leafy handle, around which two snakes intertwine, from whose mouths spring two fluted sconces terminated by elegant beaded bobèches decorated with acanthus leaves.
Related Work :
This model of gilded bronze sconce was made from a design by Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-1789).
It is reproduced Planche 58 in Histoire du Luminaire depuis l’époque Romaine jusqu’au XIXe siècle, Henry-René d’Allemagne, Paris, Alphonse Picard, Libraire-éditeur, 1891
Biography :
Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-1789) was a French architect, decorator and painter, an important theoretician of the Louis XVI style and the beginnings of neo-classicism.
His most famous collection of engravings is the Nouvelle Iconologie Historique, first published in 1768 and reissued and modified many times thereafter.
Cabinet-maker and bronze-caster, Henry Dasson (1825-1896) executed in his Paris workshop sumptuous copies of royal 18th century models and some pieces of his own modified 18th century design. For his pieces of furniture, he used the very finest ormolu mounts with high quality mercurial gilding. He mainly produced in the Louis XV and Louis XVI style. His participation at the Paris 1878 Universal Exhibition was highly remarked with Louis XVI style decorative objects and a table, all made of bronze and considered as a «chasing masterpiece», as well as a copy of the famous King Louis XV desk (original piece exhibited at Versailles), which was also admired by critics. At the 1889 Universal Exhibition, he won a «grand Prix» for his outstanding furniture. Dasson closed down his business in 1894.
