Two pairs of Austrian gilt-bronze and enamel two-light wall appliques, Vienna, circa 1750-1760, attributed to Christoph Jünger

Sotheby's London, 31 October 2017, lot 124 (sold £37,500).

Enameled chinoiserie-style chandeliers and wall-lights like the present were made in Germany and Austria in the mid-18th century.

A set of at least twenty wall-lights and closely comparable chandeliers, clearly from the same workshop, was commissioned for the Far Eastern cabinets at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna around 1755–1760 and remains there today.

A pair of very similar wall-lights, dating from the mid-18th century, is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (inv. no. 1974.356.173/174). A pair of wall lights in the same style was sold at Sotheby’s Paris, 23 September 2025, lot 31, and an eight-light chandelier was sold at Sotheby’s Paris, 15 December 2010, lot 37, as was a set of four wall sconces in the Collection Jean-Marie Rossi, d'un monde l'autre, Sotheby’s Paris, 11 March 2026, lot 180.

The porcelain painter Christoph Jünger (1736–1777) likely demonstrated his great mastery of enameling as early as 1760, when a state protection decree authorized him to work with assistants. As a “free-market enamel maker,” he was already director of the “Oriental Enamel Factory” by 1766 and employed fifty skilled workers. In 1772, he built a porcelain factory in the garden of Count Batthyan in Vienna. After being forbidden from producing porcelain—the Viennese manufactory holding a monopoly—he devoted himself entirely to enamel painting. Jünger is among the most talented enamel painters of Theresian Vienna. His works primarily consist of utilitarian and decorative pieces, such as tureens, covered bowls, and cachepots. He drew inspiration from European Rococo porcelain models but also turned to the Oriental-inspired porcelain of the Viennese manufactory, intended for export to the East.