A Pair Of Late Louis XV Period Gilt And Patinated Bronze Figural Chenets, Attributed to Jacques and Philippe Caffieri.
Modelled as a dog and cat, each seated on a tasselled cushion atop a Goût grec base with entrelac panelled frieze and eared corners with rosette paterae. On tapering fluted square tapering feet.
French, Circa 1770.
Sotheby’s, Monaco, 23-24 June 1976, lot 146.
The sculptural design of these chenets, modelled with figures of a poodle and a Persian cat is characteristic of the playful inventiveness of the high rococo, whilst the goût grec bases are indicative of changing tastes during the late Louis XV period towards neoclassicism.
The model was first recorded in a 1755 inventory taken from Jacques Caffieri’s workshop and his son Philippe Caffieri supplied a pair of chenets featuring a cat and dog, probably of the same model to the present lot, to the Prince de Condé in 1773, at a cost of 1,120 livres (S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, p. 357 pl. 223).
The models of a dog and cat are recorded on varying bases, here with tasselled cushion and handsome neoclassical entrelac and rosette cast bases, are the earliest known variant. Example with this base Sotheby’s, Monaco, 21-22 May 1978, lot 76 and Sotheby’s, Monaco, 11 February 1979, lot 234a (as illustrated in H. Ottomeyer and P. Proschel,Vergoldete Bronzen, vol. 1, Munich, 1986, p.201).
H. Ottomeyer and P. Proschel,Vergoldete Bronzen, vol. 1, Munich, 1986, p.201
By appointment only.
