PAIR OF LOUIS XVI PERIOD TORCH STANDS In the taste of Georges Jacob In carved and redecorated wood, the circular top encircled by a frieze of pearls, the baluster shaft topped by rings with friezes of pearls, gadroons and acanthus leaves, with flutes filleted with foliage, resting on a polygon decorated with foliage supported by a vase flanked by three mermaids, the triangular base with curved sides decorated in the centre with a corolla of foliage, one of the two inscribed in ink L. Figini on the reverse; restorations H. 161 cm (63 ¼ in.) l. 52 cm (20 ½ in.) A pair of Louis XVI giltwood porte-torcheres, in the taste of Georges Jacob Exceptional for its iconography, our pair of torchères stands out for the richness and variety of the ornamentation, as well as the finesse and precision of the carving. Dating from the 1780s, it was probably commissioned by a high-ranking person, a member of the Court or Finance, who was an art lover and kept abreast of interior decoration fashions. The female figures, in the form of mermaids, are associated with the Turkish fashion that the Count of Artois introduced to Paris in the mid-1770s, when he fitted out his first Turkish boudoir in the Palais du Temple in 1776. One of the best-known examples of this fashion is the console table made by Georges Jacob in 1781 for the second Turkish cabinet of the Comte d'Artois at the Château de Versailles, decorated with mermaids leaning against the top of each of the four legs(1). Georges Jacob used this motif on other pieces of furniture, such as the stamped broken chaise longue he made around 1780-1785, which came from the Paris antique dealer Seligmann and later from the collection of Nélie Jacquemart, now in the Musée Jacquemart André(2). It is interesting to note that a mermaid, also very similar to the figures on our torchères, was carved to form one of the armrests on the wax model of a shepherd's chair, made around 1780 by Jacques Gondoin (1737-1818), designer to the Garde Meuble de la Couronne, for Marie-Antoinette's seats in the Pavillon de Belvédère in Versailles, now in the Musée du Louvre(3). Lastly, two other examples are a Louis XVI period half-moon console in carved and gilded wood from the former Eugène Kraemer collection(4), which rests on caryatids in terms comparable to our own, and a nightlight from the former Diane de Castellane collection(5), which also features a mermaid leaning against the top of the backrest. Jean-Demosthène Dugourc and the arabesque taste The originality of the decoration and the combination of multiple Turkish-style ornaments suggest the work of an ornamentalist. François Joseph Bélanger (1744-1818), first architect to the Comte d'Artois since 1777, or his brother-in-law Jean-Demosthène Dugourc (1749-1825), appointed in 1780 as "draughtsman to the Cabinet of Monsieur, the King's brother", spring to mind. In the same way, he designed vast English-style pleasure houses and gardens for Laborde, a court banker, and for Saintes James, Treasurer of the Navy, the two richest private individuals in France. In 1782, Dugourc published a collection of ornaments under the title Arabesques, a name that came to characterise the ornamental fashion of the early 1780s, featuring female figures with acanthus scrolls, leaning against or facing each other on either side of a vase. These motifs invaded the painted walls of cabinets and bronze furniture(6). A project for the decoration of a French-style cabinet for the Pardo by the same Dugourc, which was never executed, also depicts torchieres placed on either side of an alcove, the layout of which is reminiscent of our torchieres(7) or that of the torchieres in Princess Kinsky's Parisian hotel on rue Saint Dominique(8). (1) Inv. OA 5234, see Décors, mobilier et objets d'art du Musée du Louvre, de Louis XIV à Marie-Antoinette, Paris, Louvre Éditions, 2014, pp 432-433, cat. 179. (2) Inv. MJAP-M 1445, see B.G.B. Pallot et al, Le Mobilier français du Musée Jacquemart André, Tome 1, Dijon, 2006, pp.182-185. (3) Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et des Trianon, on deposit with the Musée du Louvre, inv. V 6159, see C. Gougeon, Deux exceptionnelles maquettes de meubles en cire provenant du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, La revue des musées de France. Revue du Louvre, 3, 2014, p.88-93 and in particular fig. 4. (4) Sale Galerie Georges Petit, 28-29 April 1913, no. 168; sale in Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Couturier Nicolay, 31 March 1994; S. de Ricci, Le style Louis XVI, Paris 1913, reproduced p.74. (5) Sotheby's Monaco, 9 December 1995, lot 50, then Sotheby's Monaco, 13 December 1997, lot 79. (6) C. Baulez, François Rémond et le goût turc dans la famille royale au temps de Louis XVI, L'Objet d'art, 2, December 1987, p.24-45. (7) Sale in Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Arcole, 3 June 1988, lot 10. (8) Sotheby's in Monaco, 1975-1985, pair of torchères identified in 1983 by Christian Baulez as coming from the Music Room of Princess Kinsky in her Paris residence, see C. Baulez, Le luminaire de la princesse Kinsky, L'Estampille-l'Objet d'art, 247, May 1991, p.84 et seq.