424. 424W Paire d'appliques Italiennes à deux bras de lumière en bronze ciselé et doré et tôle peinte, à motif de glands et feuilles de chêne, travail probablement Romain, milieu du XVIIIe siècle A pair of Italian ormolu and tole peinte two-light wall-lights, probably Rome, mid-18th century Each with pierced, scrolling and foliate backplate issuing the S-shaped scrolling naturalistic branch style cast arms, issuing tôle peinte leaves and acorn motifs, terminating in foliate and beaded drip-pans and upswept foliate nozzles, one drip-pan and nozzle replaced, 33cm wide72cm high, (12 1/2in wide28in high) Provenance Private Collection, Italy These remarkable wall-lights with their leafy oak tree scrolling branches issuing from a pierced foliate and rocaille backplate, are the utmost testimony of the rococo style, with its playful naturalism. While the idea of carving supports in the form of trees existed in Rome already in the 17th century, as seen on a table in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, attributed to the celebrated Italian baroque architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. (see A. González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Roma e il Regno delle Due Sicilie, 1984, Milan, vol.I, p. 56, fig. VII), this Roman tradition epitomised in the middle of the 18th century, as seen on a set of five corner consoles carved with oak trees, supplied to Cardinal Flavio II Chigi, the oak tree being the emblem of the Chigi family. It has not been possible to attribute firmly the maker of these wall-lights, but different closely related designs confirm the trend of the third quarter 18th century Rome among prominent designers. A design for a related wall-light with naturalistic scrolling foliate branches can be found on a plate of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's 1769 'Diverse Maniere', see E.Colle, Bronzi Decorativi in Italia, Milano, 2001, p.188; while another related design for a wall-light from Luigi Valadier, circa 1755-1760, is illustrated in Alvar González-Palacios, L'Oro di Valadier, exhibition catalogue, Villa Medici, January-April 1997, p.192, n.70.