Offered by Franck Baptiste Paris
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Rare pair of finely chiseled and gilded bronze candlesticks, mercury decorated with two blue and white porcelain subjects representing the “Ho-Ho”* twins.
Sitting on mounds, they lean against trees decorated with porcelain flowers which act as arms of light and support the cups and bobèches.
The bases and cups of polylobed shapes are delicately chiselled with friezes of pearls.
The mounds are decorated with small plant shoots; on a grainy background imitating earth and the bases of the bobèches receive a fine decoration of foliage.
The trees, nervously treated as whiplashes, are decorated with bronze leaves and studded with small porcelain flowers.
China, Kangxi period around 1700 for the two porcelain subjects.
Manufacture of St Cloud around 1710-1720, for soft paste porcelain flowers.
Paris, work of a Parisian merchant jeweler around 1710-1720 for the bronze setting.
Beautiful state of conservation, original mercury gilding, small usual restorations to porcelain subjects and some later flowers.
Dimensions:
Height: 15 cm
*The Ho-Ho twins are Chinese mythological characters symbolizing good understanding and harmony whose attribute is the water lily flower.
They were a very fashionable lucky charm during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (1661-1722) and were produced in large numbers in biscuit and porcelain in the kilns of Jingdezhen and Dehua.
Our opinion :
The delicate pair of candlesticks that we present are among the very first porcelains mounted in Paris at the end of the reign of Louis XIV or at the beginning of the Regency.
It is part of a very limited corpus of objects that can be linked to a merchant jeweler working in Paris in the first decades of the 18th century.
His style is recognized by the use of oriental porcelain subjects, mainly "Chinese whites" from the Dehua kilns which he mounts on very fine, almost flat bases, with very detailed carving, often decorated with small details reported (flowers, shells, plant shoots).
The polylobed shapes he uses are still in a very pure Louis XIV style, as is his carving which imitates engraving.
In addition to the extreme delicacy of these frames, the use of white flowers in St Cloud paste porcelain is recurrent in his work.
He is notably the only one to attach his flowers, not with glue, but with small golden nuts.
The mastery of this technique and the numerous miniature elements reported are characteristic of the work of a jeweler and give these pieces an extremely precious character which corresponds perfectly to the name "jewelry" which was used to describe this type of piece during the reign of Louis XIV.
Several hypotheses on the identity of our jeweler come to mind such as that of Edme -François Gersaint (1694-1750) who was one of the largest haberdashery merchants in Paris but the few known pieces and the absence of pieces Louis XV style push us towards an even more elitist production.
The most serious hypothesis to date is that of Laurent Danet who was one of the greatest suppliers of jewelry, mounted hard stones and oriental porcelain to the crown.
In addition to his qualities as a jeweler and his trade in oriental porcelain, his death in 1720 corresponds perfectly with the cessation of this production.
