拍品专文
These candelabra are illustrated in the Drawing Room at Wrotham Park in the watercolour by Jane Paris dating from the second quarter of the 19th Century.
These candelabra were almost certainly acquired by George Byng for the enlarged State Rooms at Wrotham Park. Designed circa 1754 by Isaac Ware (d.1766) for the unfortunate victim of 'Judicial murder' Admiral John Byng (d.1757), Wrotham was inherited by the 'neither learned, eloquent or profound' (Gentleman's Magazine, 1847, p.309) George Byng on the death of his father in 1789. This harsh dismissal of the Father of the House and Whig Member of Parliament for Middlesex, a tenure which he held for fifty-six years, does not fairly reflect this connoisseur's broad, thought selective taste. Following the 1811 improvements, whereby the wings flanking Ware's central block were raised to provide further State Rooms, Byng proceeded to enrich the furnishings of the house in the French taste. As the Paris watercolour reveals, the predominance of Louis XV and 'Buhl' furniture, as well as Louis XV and Louis XVI ormolu-mounted objets, typified the fashionable 'goût' expounded by the marchand-mercier Edward Holmes Baldock (d.1845). Patronised by George IV, Purveyor of China, Earthenware and Glass to William IV (1832-37) and Purveyor of China to Queen Victoria (1838-45), Baldock was responsible for the formation of many of the great early 19th Century collections of French furniture, including those of the Dukes of Buccleuch and Northumberland and William Beckford, and it is highly probably that these pieces were supplied by him.
Certainly the remarkable picture collection, sharpened by the sale of twelve lesser works from his London house, 5 St James's Square, in these Rooms on 10 April 1813, and augmented by such acquisitions as Guilio Romano's Spinola Holy Family (from Lord Radstock's sale in 1826 - 890 gns), Parmigianino's Portrait of a Collector (840 gns, now in the National Gallery, London), Murillo's St Joseph and the Christ Child (sold in these Rooms, December 14 1990, lot 31) and de Hooch's Courtyard of a House in Delft (510 gns, to be sold in these Rooms, December 11 1992) clearly reveals that Byng was a connoisseur of considerable merit who was prepared to pay high prices for top quality pieces. These characteristics are shared by Baldock's principal clients and are reflected in the furnishings acquired by Byng for Wrotham up until his death in 1847.
The design of this model has been attributed by Molinier to Louis Simon Boizot (1743-1809). He thought the most likely maker to be Pierre Philippe Thomire (1751-1843) but later changed his opinion in favour of Gouthière and Etienne Forestier (c.1712-1768). However, in the light of current scholarship these candelabra, with their distinctive arabesque acanthus-scrolled candle-branches terminating in Egyptian caryatids, can be attributed on stylistic grounds to François Rémond (1745/47-1812), maître in 1774, one of the foremost bronziers of his time in Paris and the chief supplier of ormolu to the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre. His deliveries between February 1778 and August 1792 amounted to approximately 920,000 livres. Other important clients of Rémond included the comte d'Artois, for whom commissions included the ormolu provided for the Cabinet Ture at Versailles, the duc de Penthièvre, the Princesse de Lamballe and the Princesse Kinsky, whose commissions for the Hôtel Kinsky, Paris, are discussed by Christian Baulez in 'Le Luminaire de la Princesse Kinsky', L'Objet d'Art, May 1991, pp.84-99.
A number of other variants of this model are known. A similar pair, with blue-enamelled vases, female heads to the sides and differences to the shaft, said to have come from the collection of Alfred de Rothschild, is in the Huntington Collection, San Marino, California, and is illustrated in R. Wark, French Decorative Art in the Huntington Collection , Pasadena, 1979, p.78, fig.99. A similar pair at Fontainebleau bought second-hand in 1804 from the dealer Legendre and placed in the Salon de l'Empereur, is illustrated, J-P. Samoyault, Musée National du Château de Fontainebleau, Catalogue des collections de mobilier, Paris, 1989, Vol.I., p.152, no.129. Another similar pair with blue-enamelled vases in the Wallace Collection was purchased by Mannheim, acting for Lord Hertford, for 3,500 francs at the San Donato sale, Paris, 24 March 1870, lot 256. These are illustrated in F. J. B. Watson, Catalogue, London, 1956, F134 and 135, plate 16.
These candelabra were almost certainly acquired by George Byng for the enlarged State Rooms at Wrotham Park. Designed circa 1754 by Isaac Ware (d.1766) for the unfortunate victim of 'Judicial murder' Admiral John Byng (d.1757), Wrotham was inherited by the 'neither learned, eloquent or profound' (Gentleman's Magazine, 1847, p.309) George Byng on the death of his father in 1789. This harsh dismissal of the Father of the House and Whig Member of Parliament for Middlesex, a tenure which he held for fifty-six years, does not fairly reflect this connoisseur's broad, thought selective taste. Following the 1811 improvements, whereby the wings flanking Ware's central block were raised to provide further State Rooms, Byng proceeded to enrich the furnishings of the house in the French taste. As the Paris watercolour reveals, the predominance of Louis XV and 'Buhl' furniture, as well as Louis XV and Louis XVI ormolu-mounted objets, typified the fashionable 'goût' expounded by the marchand-mercier Edward Holmes Baldock (d.1845). Patronised by George IV, Purveyor of China, Earthenware and Glass to William IV (1832-37) and Purveyor of China to Queen Victoria (1838-45), Baldock was responsible for the formation of many of the great early 19th Century collections of French furniture, including those of the Dukes of Buccleuch and Northumberland and William Beckford, and it is highly probably that these pieces were supplied by him.
Certainly the remarkable picture collection, sharpened by the sale of twelve lesser works from his London house, 5 St James's Square, in these Rooms on 10 April 1813, and augmented by such acquisitions as Guilio Romano's Spinola Holy Family (from Lord Radstock's sale in 1826 - 890 gns), Parmigianino's Portrait of a Collector (840 gns, now in the National Gallery, London), Murillo's St Joseph and the Christ Child (sold in these Rooms, December 14 1990, lot 31) and de Hooch's Courtyard of a House in Delft (510 gns, to be sold in these Rooms, December 11 1992) clearly reveals that Byng was a connoisseur of considerable merit who was prepared to pay high prices for top quality pieces. These characteristics are shared by Baldock's principal clients and are reflected in the furnishings acquired by Byng for Wrotham up until his death in 1847.
The design of this model has been attributed by Molinier to Louis Simon Boizot (1743-1809). He thought the most likely maker to be Pierre Philippe Thomire (1751-1843) but later changed his opinion in favour of Gouthière and Etienne Forestier (c.1712-1768). However, in the light of current scholarship these candelabra, with their distinctive arabesque acanthus-scrolled candle-branches terminating in Egyptian caryatids, can be attributed on stylistic grounds to François Rémond (1745/47-1812), maître in 1774, one of the foremost bronziers of his time in Paris and the chief supplier of ormolu to the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre. His deliveries between February 1778 and August 1792 amounted to approximately 920,000 livres. Other important clients of Rémond included the comte d'Artois, for whom commissions included the ormolu provided for the Cabinet Ture at Versailles, the duc de Penthièvre, the Princesse de Lamballe and the Princesse Kinsky, whose commissions for the Hôtel Kinsky, Paris, are discussed by Christian Baulez in 'Le Luminaire de la Princesse Kinsky', L'Objet d'Art, May 1991, pp.84-99.
A number of other variants of this model are known. A similar pair, with blue-enamelled vases, female heads to the sides and differences to the shaft, said to have come from the collection of Alfred de Rothschild, is in the Huntington Collection, San Marino, California, and is illustrated in R. Wark, French Decorative Art in the Huntington Collection , Pasadena, 1979, p.78, fig.99. A similar pair at Fontainebleau bought second-hand in 1804 from the dealer Legendre and placed in the Salon de l'Empereur, is illustrated, J-P. Samoyault, Musée National du Château de Fontainebleau, Catalogue des collections de mobilier, Paris, 1989, Vol.I., p.152, no.129. Another similar pair with blue-enamelled vases in the Wallace Collection was purchased by Mannheim, acting for Lord Hertford, for 3,500 francs at the San Donato sale, Paris, 24 March 1870, lot 256. These are illustrated in F. J. B. Watson, Catalogue, London, 1956, F134 and 135, plate 16.