A PAIR OF LARGE LOUIS XV STYLE GILT BRONZE THREE-LIGHT WALL LIGHTS, 19TH CENTURY |

wired for electricity

These wall lights are the same model as a pair sold from the Keck Collection at La Lanterne, Bel Air, California, Sotheby’s New York, 5-6 December 1991, lot 201, and subsequently in the Riahi sale Christie’s London, December 6, 2012, lot 22 (£181,250).  These are almost identical to a pair marked with the crowned C attributed to Jean-Claude Duplessis, now in the Wrightsman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum (F.J.B. Watson, The Wrightsman Collection, New York 1966, Vol. II p. 415, nos.228 A and B). Two further similar pairs now divided between the Louvre and Versailles were recorded at Fontainebleau during the Empire period (P. Samoyault, Fontainebleau, Pendules et Bronzes entrés sous le Premier Empire, Paris 1989, p.123, fig.88).
Jean Claude Duplessis (1699-1774), like Meissonnier, was a goldsmith and designer born in Turin who accompanied the Savoy Prince de Carignan to Paris in 1718 and later became director and chief designer of the Vincennes porcelain factory in 1748, where he oversaw its transfer to Sèvres and remained until his death.  He worked closely with the marchands merciers like Lazare-Duvaux to create wax models for bronzes to be mounted on porcelain and furniture, most famously those of the celebrated Bureau du Roi supplied by Oeben and Riesener for Versailles.