A pair of Swedish green and white painted parcel-gilt torchères late 18th century

each with a gadrooned circular top, above a flaring reeded baluster stem carved with leaves, on a triform base carved with lion masks and painted with neo-classical figures, on paw feet on a triangular base with canted corners; painting refreshed

Comparative Literature:
Hakan Groth, Neoclassicism in the North, Swedish Furniture and Interiors 1770-1850, London, 1990, p. 214, fig. 63.

This neo-classical late Gustavian torchère in terms of form and carving with the lion masks and neo-classical scenes on the base is very similar to a Swedish torchère probably by Pehr Lung, in the Haga Pavilion, Stockholm illustrated by H. Groth op.cit., p. 214, fig. 63 and reproduced here in fig. 1. Haga was known as Gustav II's Trianon after a visit by him to Paris in 1771 and was a small wooden manor house set in a picturesque landscape.

The offered torchères are so similar they are probably by the same maker.Pehr Ljung (1743-1819) was an ornemantal carver, furniture and mirror maker and studied at the Stockholm Academy and under his father the ornament carver Johan Ljung. He became professor of the Academy and his carved decoraions are at the Royal Palace Hylinge, Haga, Tullgarn, Rosersberg amongst others.