A Monumental Louis XVI Style Twelve-Light Chandelier, After François Rémond, Circa 1860

Object Description

An Important and Monumental Gilt-Bronze and Tole Twelve-Light Chandelier, Attributed to Maison Beurdeley, After The Celebrated Model By François Remond.

The vase shaped body is painted in blue tole and issues a spirally cast finial filled with flowers. The ‘S’-shaped branches are wrapped with scrolled acanthus and held by female term busts. The tapering vase body is applied with leafy scrolls. Hung by loop chains from a foliate cast ceiling rose.

Etched signature ‘H. Beau’ to the tole.

France, Circa 1860/80.

Object History

This magnificent chandelier ‘aux terms’ is a Napoléon III example of a most famous model attributed to François Rémond (1747–1812) which is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 1972, Accession Number: 1972.242). A closely related chandelier is in the collection of the Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris (Inv. CAM 146).

The design is a full flourishing of the goût grec inspired by the heroic art of classical antiquity, as interpreted during Louis XVI’s reign by ornamental designers such as Pierre Gouthière and, as here, François Rémond.

In the nineteenth century there was a fashionable revival of the Louis XVI style precipitated by Empress Eugènie, who was fascinated by Louis XVI’s queen, Marie Antoinette. This chandelier is an enlarged nineteenth-century version, and the model is known from a drawing by Alfred Beurdeley held in the Beurdeley archives in the library of the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris. The drawing records it to be ‘hauteur 1 m. 50 / Diamètre 90’, which corresponds to the present example.

Object Literature

Ledoux – Lebard, Denise. Les Ébénistes du XIXe siècle, Les Editions de L’Amateur, (Paris), 1984; pp. 75-82.

Mestdagh, Camille & Lécoules, Pierre. L’Ameublement d’Art Français, 1850-1900, Les Editions de L’Amateur, (Paris), 2010; pp.262-276.

Meyer, Jonathan. Great Exhibitions – London, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, 1851-1900, Antique Collectors’ Club, (Woodbridge, UK), 1984 ; pps. 175, 247, 269, 270, 290, 298.

Object Details