A Fine Louis XVI Style Gilt-Bronze and Glass Cage Chandelier With Applied Porcelain Flowers, Attributed to L’Escalier De Cristal.
French, Circa 1900.
Fitted internally with eleven light fitments.
This fine chandelier is of cage form with a beaded trellis frame and chains of faceted drops. The gilt-bronze frame embellished all over with white porcelain flowers in the manner of Meissen.
L’Escalier de Cristal (1802-1923) was established by Marie Jeanne Rosalie Désarnaud-Charpentier, the daughter of a goldsmith from Châlons-sur-Marne, when she opened her renowned boutique in the Galerie de Valois of the Palais Royal in 1802. There she specialised in objects of great technical and aesthetic innovation, many composed entirely of crystal and gold plated bronze. What the previous century had done incorporating porcelain into objects and furnishings, Mme Désarnaud-Charpentier did with crystal in the nineteenth. Sadly very few of these crystal furnishings survive with us today.
De Commines, Laurent & Gizard, Eric. Un Âge D’or Des Arts Décoratifs 1814-1848, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, (Paris), 1991.
By appointment only.
