A set of four late Louis XV carved giltwood torchères, circa 1765-1770

M. Hubert de Montbrison Paris Galerie Charpentier, 8 June 1933, lot 69;

with Jacques Helft, 1935;

Sotheby's Monaco, Collection of Arturo López-Willshaw, 23 June 1976, lot 70;

Sotheby's London, Highly Important French Furniture, 24-25 November 1988, lot 26;

Private Collection, Europe;

Christie's New York, The Collector: English & European Furniture, Fine Art, Ceramics and Silver, 10 April 2018, lot 102.

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M. Hubert de Montbrison, Paris Galerie Charpentier, 8 juin 1933, lot 69;

avec Jacques Helft, 1935;

Sotheby's Monaco, Collection Arturo López-Willshaw, 23 juin 1976, lot 70;

Sotheby's Londres, Highly Important French Furniture, 24-25 novembre 1988, lot 26;

Collection privée, Europe;

Christie's New York, The Collector: English & European Furniture, Fine Art, Ceramics and Silver, 10 avril 2018, lot 102.

These impressively bold torchères designed in the so called “goût grec” reflect the fascinating moment in French Decorative Arts when ancient historic forms emulating Antiquity became the latest fashion. The "goût grec" was an avant-garde and short-lived movement at the beginning of the Neoclassical period, spearheaded by sophisticated Parisian tastemakers such as Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully and the Comte de Caylus.

Engravings depicting torchères were used extensively throughout the 18th century to diffuse an artist's designs, also enabling other designers and craftsmen to take inspiration from these designs and execute them in their chosen material. Many artists such as Jean-Charles Delafosse and Jean-Louis Prieur participated in this new mania and in fact excelled at designing neoclassical torchères. A drawing for a torchère by Jean-Louis Prieur (illustrated in Svend Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London 1974, pl. 403, fig.1) and another by Jean-Charles Delafosse (fig.2) are particularly interesting example.

Comte Hubert de Monbrison dit Cazaubon (1892-1981)

Count Hubert de Monbrison, heir to a great Huguenot name in the South of France, was born in 1892 in Saint-Avertin into a Franco-Irish Protestant family. In 1914, he joined the French army and ended the First World War with various military awards. A businessman and Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, he also had a great passion for photography.

On 3 July 1939, Count Hubert de Monbrison, Secrétaire général du Secours aux enfants de réfugiés politiques, made available to the OSE (Oeuvre de secours aux enfants) for a group of forty boys from Berlin, the castle of Quincy-sous-Sénart, which was already home to a number of Russian girls who had emigrated in 1917 and young Spanish refugees. Hubert de Monbrison also owned the villa at Guilharria in Pyla-sur-Mer, in the commune of La Teste-de-Buch.

He is recorded to have been married three times. He was married to Marguerite Adele née Léonino; Renée, the sister of Yvonne de Rothschild and Irina Pavlovna Paley who was from the Romanov family.

Jacques and Léon Helft

Each torchère bears a paper label to the underside marked for Le Fils de Leon Helft [for the son of Leon Helft] at the Exposition de Bruxelles 1935. During the Exposition of Bruxelles of 1935, the house of Jean de la Fontaine was reconstructed in order to accommodate the exhibit of the Administration des Eaux et Forêts (Administration of Water and Forests). On the first floor of the house, it is recorded that the study and the next-door salon were furnished with the help of the Société des Marchands d'Art, de Tableaux et Curiosités de Paris, under the presidency of Mr Jacques Helft, the son of Leon Helft. It is in one of these rooms that the four torchères were exhibited.

Jacques Helft (1891-1980) was a French art and antiques dealer who followed in his father’s footsteps. Jacques notably went into partnership with the famous art dealer and his brother-in-law Paul Rosenberg and together they opened a new branch of Rosenberg’s galleries in London. Established on 31 Bruton Street, the gallery was active between 1936 and 1940, when Jacques and his family left for New York where he opened his own gallery on 57^th Street from 1942 to 1948. He then moved to Argentina for several years and finally returned to France in 1956 where he became Honorary President of the Syndicat des Antiquaires and became interested in the French goldsmiths of the Ancien Régime, a subject that was still very little studied at the time.

Arturo López-Wilshaw

An astute collector and worldly aesthete, Arturo Lopez-Willshaw (1901-1962) was also one of the greatest patrons of the Château de Versailles, financing, for example, the restoration of the King's Chamber (fig.3). The son of a Chilean industrialist, he inherited an immense fortune but also his father's taste for the French decorative arts. Passionate about 18th century furniture, a sensibility he shared with Alexis de Rédé, with an inclination for the splendour of Louis XIV and Louis XV, he sought out unique and exceptional objects throughout his life.

The Chilean millionaire Arturo López-Willshaw moved to France during the inter-war period where he became an important figure in Paris and moved in high society circles. Rich in its luxury aesthetic, the López-Willshaw’s collection brought together an abundance of beautiful objects, including a famous collection of goldsmithery partially dispersed by Sotheby's. Many of the pieces were also donated to the châteaux of Versailles and Rambouillet.

López-Willshaw divided his time between the Hôtel Lambert on the island Saint-Louis, where he lived with his companion Alexis de Redé and the Hôtel in Neuilly-sur-Seine (where the four torchères are photographed -fig.4), where he moved to in 1928 and his yacht La Gaviota IV, designed by the interior designer Georges Geffroy during the 1950s. Each residence was populated with pieces from his vast collection, and retained their own very distinct personalities.

His private mansion on rue du Centre in Neuilly-sur-Seine was built in 1903 by the architect Paul Rodocanachi on the plan of an 18th century mansion. He refurnished it in the manner of a "little Versailles" and undertook major works in the 1950s. In addition to the extensions, he carried out considerable transformations and in particular had a ballroom made entirely of shells, similar to the Chaumière aux coquillages in Rambouillet.