AN IMPERIAL CHANDELIER BY DUFOUGERAIS SUPPLIER TO NAPOLEON I A large gilt-bronze and cut-crystal chandelier supplied by B.F. Ladouepe Dufougerais Empire, 1812

with a circular reeded corona hung with a stem mounted with a row of columns forming a rotunda surmounting a diamond cut bowl mounted with ten swans  and supporting thirty scrolled candlearms emanating from ten candlebranches, above a further cut crystal ball finial, the whole lavishly hung with faceted drops

Literature:
P. Arizzoli-Clementel, C. Gastinel-Coural, Il progetto di Arredo del Quirinale nell' Eta' Napoleonica, Roma, Bolletino d' Arte, 1995, plate 9, cat. 24 and  plate 30, Cat.63 and 64.
Alvar Gonzalez-Plalacios, Il Gusto dei Principi, Milano, 1993, plate 123, page 75.
D. Ledoux-Lebard, Les Grand Trianons, Paris, 1975, pp. 99-191.

The project of refurbishment of Palazzo di Monte Cavallo.

In order to identify the origin of this chandelier the research conducted in 1995 by Pierre Arizzoli-Clementel and Chantal Gastinel-Coural on the project of refurbishment of the Quirinal Palace during Napoleon's era is paramount ( op. cit.).   

The French authors have reconstructed step by step, through studying the existing documents of the Archives Nationales and other French libraries and the actual pieces in the deposits in the Moblier National (ex. M. Imperial), the monumental project of the Empire decoration of the Quirinal in Rome (ex Palazzo di Monte Cavallo, former summer residence of the Popes and today of the President of Italy). After the abolition of the Church State in 1809, Rome was proclaimed the second capital of the French Empire and the Quirinal was intended to serve as the Palais Imperial of Napoleon I, King of Italy since 1805. The Quirinal Palace had to become second only if not equal in grandness to the Tuileries Palace, the Parisian Imperial residence. Despite the best of intentions, the project was never realised; the works started in 1811were suddenly interrupted in 1814, when the French Empire crumbled and the French abandoned Rome and the rest of the Italian territories.

In 1805 the Etiquette was issued in Paris, a document which aimed to establish the protocol for the decoration of all the Appartments de Représentation and Privés of the Emperor and the Empress. By 1811 the principal guidelines were fixed and the works were ready to start in the Eternal City.

With the help of a planimetry and carefully drawn lists of the pieces of furniture and textiles originally intended for every single room the authors enable the reader to virtually reconstruct the interiors of the Quirinal palace. Particularly fascinating is the correspondence between the supervisors and the decorators in Rome and those in Paris, the latter being slightly jealous of the status of the new second capital of the Empire ('the same throne of the Tuileries is ordered for Rome'! the French said); almost paradoxical is the fact that the Emperor, despite the events between 1811-1814, paid particular attention to several decisions regarding the decoration, not least the colour of the silks.

Despite the initial proposal of commissioning most of the furnishings from Italian manufacturers, the primary role of the already famous French court suppliers becomes immediately obvious. Invoices are recorded together with their concerns when they started to realise the project would never be completed; Bailly and Le Paute for the clocks, Dagoty for the porcelain, Feuchère, Galle, Ravrio and Thomire for the bronzes, Jacob-Desmalter and Marcion for the furniture, Darrac for the tapesteries, and most importantly in our case Chaumont  et Dufougerais for the chandeliers. The deposits of the Garde-Robe Impériale were also an important source of supply. These deliveries are recorded in the three shipments to Rome between 1812 and 1813. Other deliveries followed in 1814 from the French suppliers to the Garde Meuble but due to events several furnishings remained in Paris and they were dispersed amongst the Parisian residencies of the restored monarchy including Palais Borboun, palais Royal, Bagatelle and the Tuileries. The furnishings which ended in the latter residence were subsequently dispersed or destroyed following the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 and the following plunder and fire of 1871.

In particular, because the pieces intended for the Quirinale never had the opportunity to be stamped due to the fact that the project was never accomplished and an inventory was never therefore drawn up by the Garde Meuble (as in the case of the present  chandelier), the abovementioned publication is paramount for the identification of these dispersed pieces and it should serve as an incentive to further research and discoveries.

The chandeliers delivered by the Imperial suppliers Dufougerais et Chaumont. 

The present chandelier, so far untraced, is part of a series of chandeliers, some of which are still dispersed, of which examples survive in public French collections and in the Royal Palace of Naples.

In 1813, when the redecoration of the Quirinal was interrupted and after the invasion of the Roman Sates by Gioacchino Murat, all the furnishings which had already arrived in Rome were sent to the ruler of Naples, who, from 1808 inhabited with his wife Carolina Bonaparte, the Royal Palace in Naples.

A discovery of archival documents made in 1987 by Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios and republished in 1993 (op. cit.), has been fundamental for the study and understanding of these chandeliers.

In the State Archives in Naples, Ministero Interno, Appendix II, File 1532, an inventory titled  `Stato degli oggetti venuti da Roma in questo Real Palazzo di Napoli, e dove sono stati situati e trasportati', lists twenty-four chandeliers under the entries numbered 39-48. Of these twenty-four chandeliers only a few can be identified with certainty in the royal Neapolitan residences.  

In particular, under the number 39: Tre lampadari a colonne garniti di cristalli e a 30 lumi l'uno',  (`three chandeliers with columns decorated with crystals each of them with thirty candlebranches'), are recorded.Two of these chandeliers, with giffins' heads were intended for the Throne Room, the other one for the Galleria in the Royal Palace in Naples. They left Paris on 2nd July 1812 and they arrived in Rome on 2nd October of the same year. They were the work of the manufacturer of chandeliers Dufougerais, who describes them in his invoice 'deux lustres a colonnes, les dits garnis de cristaux et a trente lumieres'.

A. Gonzalez-Palacios, op. cit., fig.123, p.75, illustrates one of two chandeliers which are today in the Royal Palace of Naples, which are the same listed in the abovementioned inventory under n.39. They are described and commented upon in detail in the Arizzoli and Gastinel study, op. cit., cat. n. 26 page 97. From that study we understand that those two chandeliers were also originally intended for the Salle du Throne of the Quirinal. They cost 10000 francs each and were described in the invoice by the supplier Dufougerais as ornamented with griffins' heads (today missing and possibly removed at the time when Murat ordered the removal of the Imperial symbols). Before they were destined for the Quirinal they were supposed to furnish the Grand Cabinet de l' Empereur at  Saint-Cloud where they were substitued by a pair commissioned from Thomire.       

The present  example is remarkably similar to the chandeliers in the Royal Palace of Naples. In the absence, as already stated, of stamps or marks, one can only speculate that it represents the third chandelier with columns mentioned under n.39 of the archival document  preserved in Naples which is described under cat. n. 63, pages 131-2 of the Arizzoli and  Gastinel research.

Delivered on Octobre 1812, it was originally intended for the Grand Cabinet de L' Empereur in the Quirinal Palace. It is described in the invoice by Dufougerais as 'un lustre a colonnes, ledit garni de cristaux et a trente lumieres' (A.N. o2 505) at a cost of  10,000 francs.   

In August 1813 it was decided that another chandelier had to be fitted in the same room. It had to be identical to the one delivered by Dufougerais but it was commissioned from Chaumont (Arizzoli, Gastinel, op. cit. cat. 64, pag. 132, today in the Mobilier National, Paris). The Chaumont chandelier never reached Rome due the fall of  Napoleon.

The Garde-Meuble Impériale intended to send other chandeliers to the Quirinal Palace in addition to the twenty-four mentioned in the inventory which were requested by Murat  in Naples but due to the historical events the deliveries were stopped and they entered the French Garde Meuble. Two of these chandeliers by Chaumont are today in the Grand Trianon, Versailles and they show an identical cut glass globular finial as on the present one.

Chaumont is recorded as manufacturer of chandeliers in  Rue Chapon 23, Paris. B.F.

Ladouepe Dufougerais is recorded as Entrepeneur and owner of the  Manufacture des crystaux de Montcenis in  Rue Bondi, 8-10, Paris (Arizzoli,-Clementel, Gastinel-Coural, op. cit., pp. 36-37).