Pair of silver torches the circular base with... Lot 43

Pair of silver torches the circular base with radiating flutes underlined by a laurel torus, the shaft with three panels of tri-lobed piastres scraps punctuated with friezes of water leaves, the gadrooned tap topped by a frieze of laurel leaves. The sticks stamped with the numbers 11 and 20. The inside of the feet engraved in Cyrillic KP and HX. Goldsmith: Robert-Joseph AUGUSTE (1723-1805) Paris, 1778 Height: 11 in. Weight: 1, 829 Kg approx. Will be sold with reunion faculty with lot 44. An identical pair of torches from the Kazan service is illustrated in Fœlkersam, Inventaire de l’Argenterie, kept in the storage facilities of the Imperial Palaces, St. Petersburg, 1907, pl. 33, the description p. XXIII. Two other torches appear in the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Paris (1779 and 1782), illustrated in Gérard Mabille, Orfèvrerie Française, pp. 16-19, Gérard Mabille notes eight identical torches dating from 1778 (collections Jacques Helft, Henri Viguier...). An illustrious pupil of the goldsmith JacquesNicolas Rœttiers, Robert-Joseph Auguste was received as a master in Paris in 1757. Working for the merchant Lazare Duvaux, supplier of Madame de Pompadour, he received the title of ordinary goldsmith from the king in 1775, consecrating him as the main supplier to the Crown until the Revolution. The works of this major goldsmith with an eminent international clientele, such as Catherine II of Russia, are today to be found in the world's largest public collections such as the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum and the Hermitage.