A Pair of Louis XV Gilt-Bronze Chenets, Mid-18th Century

Collection of the Duc de Doudeauville;

Palais Galliera, Paris, 19 June 1964, lot 263;

Les Dillée: Une Dynastie D’experts Et De Collectionneurs, Sotheby’s Paris, 18-19 March 2015, lot 35;

Where acquired by the present collector.

Evoking the theme of hunting, gilt bronzes andirons incorporating animal elements such as a boar, stag or hounds were well suited for interiors in country estates. Noteworthy examples include the feu au cerf et au sanglier supplied by the bronze artist Quentin-Claude Pitoin (1725-1777) to the salon de Madame du Barry at Fontainebleau (Paris, Musée du Louvre OA 5175, on loan to the Château de Versailles; illustrated Daniel Alcouffe et al., Les bronzes d'ameublement du Louvre, Dijon 2004, p. 118, n°55, and further versions of which are in the Château de Compiègne and the Metropolitan Museum, New York); as well as the large-scale stag and wild boar groups in the Röhsska Musem, Gothenburg, Sweden, illustrated in Pierre Verlet, Les bronzes dorés français du XVIIIe siècle, Paris 1987, p,.3-4 p.18-19). The treatment of the boar's head on the present lot is also very similar to that on a set of four wall lights in the chambre du roi of the Palais Rohan, Strasbourg, illustrated in Jean-Daniel Ludmann, Le Palais Rohan de Strasbourg, Strasbourg 1979, Vol.I. p.296.