Pair of opaline candlesticks, Manufacture du Creusot circa 1820

Pair of translucent opal crystal candlesticks known as "opaline soap bubble"*.
Extremely rare model with circular bases, conical shafts and bobeches in the shape of Medici vases entirely
in pressed and molded opaline.
The bases are set in a finely chiseled bronze mount gilded with mercury, decorated with beaded friezes.
Bronze bobeches decorated with friezes of palmettes.
Very good state of preservation.
Work of the royal manufactory of Le Creusot*, period of Jean François Chagot, circa 1820.
The allocation of our torches to the manufactory stems from drawings in the price catalog of the famous crystal factory.
Size:
Height: 25.5 cm
A pair of similar torches, the shape of which is also referenced in the catalog of the Le Creusot manufacture,
is kept at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris under the inventory number 34462.
*Opal crystal, also known as "moonlight" or "soap bubble" opaline, is a translucent glass with a milky white
appearance and iridescent reflections.
It is made by adding tin oxide and calcined bones to the glass.
Discovered at the end of the eighteenth century, it experienced a considerable boom in the 1820s, notably
under the impetus of the Manufacture Royale du Creusot, which employed more than 300 workers and
exported its production throughout Europe.
Our opinion:
The pair of torches that we are presenting is extremely rare, they were marketed just after the exhibition of
industrial products in 1818 where the Creusot factory stood out for the originality of its production.
If many torches from the Charles X period with opaline are known, they often and only have an opaline "rice
paste" shaft with a bronze frame, base and bobeche.
The appearance of new techniques in 1825 gradually saturated the glass and made it lose its translucent side.
Our torches are instead made entirely of "soap bubble" opaline, with hollow barrels that allow light to pass
through a glass that serves as a dichroic filter.
Depending on the polarization that runs through them, they see a whole palette of iridescent reflections in
the most varied tones. The bronze mounts are very discreet and only serve to emphasize the material, in the
same way that lacquers or porcelain were mounted in the past.
The decoration of the frame, which is in the purest empire style, allows us to date them to the heyday of
opaline, in the 1820s. The period when this material was still an object of great luxury and well before the
first attempts to lower production costs.
If the object may seem quite simple at first glance, it is of the most extreme rarity, especially in good
condition and with its period bobeches.