Attribué à Pierre-Philippe THOMIRE (Paris, 1751-1843 ; maître en 1772)

Not presented-PAIR OF ARMS FOR A WIRED CHILD Empire period - Paris, circa 1810 Gilt bronze H. 60 cm, L. 41 cm PROVENANCE Former collection of Violette de Talleyrand, Duchesse de Sagan, wife of Gaston Palewski, apartment located at 1 rue Bonaparte in Paris Each sconce of this pair is composed of an angel bust victoriously wearing a flowery crown from which six arms of light escape. His torso ends with a belt of water leaves and a fall of fleuron and palmette. This pair must be compared to the pairs of arms with winged children that Thomire delivered for Fontainebleau in 1809 and 1810. The six-light model is identical to the one in the Louvre (fig. 1). More sober than ours, it was taken up by Galle and Ravrio, who delivered new pairs to Trianon in 1810 and 1813 (fig. 2). However, the five-light model was enriched with leaves and ornamental scrolls, as here. This composition with a brandon and five foliage trumpets decorated with flowering scrolls is found on a pair of girandoles by the same Thomire where a Victory wears the luminous crown high. It is preserved in the Metropolitan Museum in New York (fig. 3). On our pair of sconces, the central brandon rests on a pine cone.