A PAIR OF LOUIS XVI GILT BRONZE THREE-LIGHT CORS DE CHASSE WALL LIGHTS, CIRCA 1780 |

wired for electricity

Michel Meyer, Paris

This model is based on a design by the painter and artistic director of the Sèvres factory Jean-Jacques Bachelier (1724-1806) for a wall light composed of three hunting horns and oak branches tied by a ribbon with tassels (ill. U. Leben, Object Design in the Age of Enlightenment, Getty Museum 2004, p.35).  A pair of wall lights of this model but on a larger and more complex scale was delivered by the bronzier Claude Galle to the Imperial Garde-Meuble at the Petit Trianon in 1809 (ill. D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Petit Trianon, Paris 1989, p.98).  These are now hanging in the Salle à manger des retours de chasse in the Appartement du roi in the main palace at Versailles.  A related set of eight is also in the palace of Pavlovsk outside St Petersburg (Pavlovsk, The Collections, Paris 1993, one ill. p.194, fig.54).