A pair of Restauration gilt-bronze three-light wall appliques by Lucien François Feuchère, circa 1820

Delivered in 1820 to the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne,

Probably at the Palais des Tuileries from July 1823,

In 1833 at the Palais des Tuileries on the first floor, Logements des dames,

In the French royal collections until 1848.

Emblematic of the Empire style, the present pair of wall-appliques is of a known model produced by the Parisian bronzier Lucien-François Feuchère (1780–1828), and they are indeed one of the two original pairs delivered by Feuchère to the Garde-Meuble du Roi in June 1820. With the second pair still at the Mobilier National in Paris (illustrated Marie-France Dupuy-Baylet, L'Heure, le Feu, La Lumière. Les Bronzes du Mobilier National 1800-1870, Dijon 2010, no.145 p.265), the present is a fascinating discovery, with a history traceable in the French national archives. 

In the journal of the Garde-Meuble, the two pairs are described as " quatre bras de cheminée dorés or moulu à trois branches à trompe formant bouclier à 72 (francs, soit 288 francs l'ensemble) - Archives Nationales, Paris, AJ19/612, 1820. Listed under nr 10161, both pairs of wall-appliques were marked with this number directly onto the gilt-bronze - a method used sporadically in the late 18th century/early 19th century for Royal property. Archival records show the two pairs were separated: one pair was sent to the l'Hôtel du ministère de la Maison du Roi in 1822 and the other to the Tuileries Palace in 1823. 

Both pairs were then reunited by 1833 at the Palais des Tuileries, as proven by the numbers on each pair which correspond to an entry in the inventories from 1833. The present pair, marked with the number 4455, corresponds to “2 deux Bras de cheminée en bronze doré 3 lumière casques et armorial” in the 1833 inventory of the Palais des Tuileries, in a ‘Chambre à coucher’ within the apartments of the Queen’s maids on the 1st floor (AJ/19/171). 

The second pair, now at the Mobilier National, bears the markings ‘4558’, and ‘15011’. Under no.4558 in the Journal du Garde Meuble, they are mentioned in a more lengthy description and said to have been sent to the Palais des Tuileries on 2nd March 1833. This can be verified thanks to an inventory (nr. nr 15011) from 1835, in which the pair is listed in the Cabinet de Monsieur Baron Fain, the Police Commissioner. Further markings are present on this second pair: TU 10399 (corresponding to an inventory of the Tuileries on 24 Decembre 1856), 16308 (for an inventory on 8th September 1858) and HP 1991 (for an inventory of the hôtel de la Présidence à Versailles from 1874).

Because the second pair was sent from the Garde Meuble to the Tuileries in March 1833, it is most likely it is the pair that was beforehand at the Hôtel du ministère de la Maison du Roi in 1822. Otherwise it would not make sense for the pair to have been sent to the Tuileries in March 1833 if it was already there. The present pair is thus the example that was at the Tuileries as soon as July 1823.

The present pair does not bear further markings, therefore it is not possible to pin-point the pair in further inventories of the Palais des Tuileries beyond 1833, thus suggesting the pairs were separated and the present came on the market, most probably during the French Revolution of 1848 when the Palais des Tuileries was massively looted and dispersed.

A single example of the model from a private collection is illustrated in Hans Ottomeyer and Peter Pröschel, Vergoldete Bronzen (Munich 1986), vol. II, p. 668, fig. 2, and another pair was recently sold Artcurial Paris, 13 December 2023, lot 95.