attributed to the Marquis house Exceptional chandelier with cymbals players in gilt bronze, chased and amatized with 35 lights. The small crown is decorated with bunches of grapes alternating with acanthus leaves. Three putti with cymbals surround the fluted column supporting five arms of light in scrolls ended by cherubs each holding a garland of flowers. Five medallions with children's portraits punctuate the central crown. Work of the Second Empire in the Louis XIV style. Height 136 Diameter 135 cm. (not electrified, slightly twisted, one element to be reattached, probably missing its crystal pendants) From the castle of a former mayor of Chartres under the Restoration Bibliography: - A.N.: O 1679, memoir of June 15, 1853; gal. du Garde-Meuble: Aj 687, August 2, 1855, entry no. 56 (Marquis no. 4), s.n°; inv. du Palais-Royal: AJ 134, 1856, no. 180. - Pierre Arizzoli-Clémentel and Jean-Pierre Samoyault, Le Mobilier de Versailles, chefs d'oeuvre du XIXe siècle, éditions Faton, 2009, p. 436-437. - Marie-France Dupuy-Baylet, " De Bronze et de Cristal, objets d'ameublement XVIIIe - XIXe siècle du Mobilier National ", éditions Faton, 2020, p. 300-301. - Hans. Ottomeyer, "Vergoldete Bronzen", vol. I, Munich, 1986, p. 238, fig. 4.4.1. - Pierre Verlet, "Les bronzes dorés français du XVIIIème siècle," Picard, 1987, pp. 91-92 and p. 340, fig. 101. Louis-Auguste Marquis (1811-1885), a manufacturer of bronzes, joined forces in 1839 with Gilbert-Honoré Chaumont (1790-1868), a craftsman in the field of chandeliers. The association is crowned with success. At the Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie, they received a bronze medal for the creation of a set composed of candelabras in the Renaissance style, a clock and a large chandelier with branches supported by children and chimeras. Later, the house moved to n° 25 rue Chapon in Paris, and moved under Napoleon III to 66 boulevard de Strasbourg. Characteristic of historicism in the French decorative arts, the chandeliers of the Marquis house respond to important orders for various palaces such as: the Elysée, the Palais Royal, the Tuileries, Trianon or the castle of Pau. These chandeliers are made in different styles: Gothic, Renaissance or Louis XIV. The company became the main supplier of the royal palaces and benefited from the title of "Manufacturer of the Furniture of the Crown". Our cymbal chandelier reminds us of a similar model delivered to the Garde-Meuble for the red room of Prince Napoleon's apartment at the Palais-Royal, according to the memorandum of May 25, 1853: "a 32-light chandelier with 4 children in chased bronze, gilded, trimmed with crystals". (Mobilier National, inv. GML-3914-000). The same inventory tells us that a chandelier with musicians, very probably similar to this one, was acquired from the Marquis house in 1853 for the Louis XVI gallery of Prince Jerome Napoleon's apartment at the Palais-Royal. The inventory of this residence, drawn up in 1856, does not indicate any exit for this chandelier. The chandeliers decorated with cymbals, flutes and trumpets have existed since the 17th century. The Palace of Versailles preserves one of the first examples called "with trumpet players". These chandeliers decorated with child musicians became the most luxurious models. And it continues constantly with the Louis XVI style. Among the great exponents of this ornamental repertoire, let us mention Pierre Gouthière, whose chandelier made for the gilded cabinet of the Palace of Versailles presents three children playing the trumpet around the central shaft. Our chandelier, made during the second half of the 19th century, is inspired by these baroque and neo-classical productions of the 17th and 18th centuries. It testifies to this spectacular Second Empire by the abundance of its luxurious eclectic decoration of cymbal players.