FRANCE - ÉPOQUE RÉGENCE Lot n° 28

Pair of "CHILD BLOWERS" OR "ZEPHYRS" Gilded Bronze H. 43 cm, W. 31 cm Electricity holes This pair of Gilded Bronze light arms adopts the rocaille aesthetic canons where movement, curves and counter-curves, jagged foliage and the sought-after unbalance of the structures are combined to create a refined and elegant work of art. The shaft of each arm consists of an asymmetrical plate ornamented under a stapled shell with a mound of falling acanthus leaves and florets surrounding in a central cartouche a chubby face of Zephyr (or Boreas) blowing. Two arms of light escape from it wrapped at their base in acanthus leaves and then develop one in a swirling movement decorated with vegetal and lanceolate motifs and the other with a more graphic surface treatment, adopting a wise curve. The basins are decorated with a frieze of interlaced leaves and bases. They support binets with ribbed foliage bulges. A pair similar to ours dated 1725 is kept at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (fig. 1). Another, belonging to a private collection and dated to the same period, is also stamped with the crowned "C" (Fig. 2). The success of this pair of sconces was immense and this representation of Zephyr was used until about 1750, in a purely rocaille style, notably by the great bronze-maker Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain, as the one kept at Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin shows (fig. 3).