A pair of Louis XVI gilt-bronze seven-light candelabra, circa 1789, attributed to François Rémond, almost probably supplied by Dominique Daguerre

Certainly Château de Montreuil, grand salon of Madame Elisabeth, sister of Louis XVI, 1789

Related Literature:

O. Conan, Intime XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 2024.

H. Ottomeyer and P. Pröschel, Vergöldete Bronzen, vol. I, Munich, 1986, p. 266.

C. Baulez, "Les bronziers Gouthière, Thomire et Rémond", in Versailles deux siècles d’histoire de l’art, 2007.

As for the provenance of this 18th century lot, it must have belonged to Madame Elisabeth, Louis XVI's younger sister, at her château in Montreuil. In fact, the furniture in this château, one of the monarchy's last commissions, bore no inventory mark. In 1789, the marchand mercier Dominique Daguerre received an order from the royal furniture repository, number 54 of 1 April 1789, to supply four or  « deux paires de girandoles forme de trépie à 7 lumières en bronze ciselé et doré au mât à 2700 soit 5400 livres » for the princess's drawing room in Montreuil. This price was close to the pair delivered for the salon des nobles of Queen Marie Antoinette at the Château de Versailles in October 1786 at 2612 livres, which had six lights.

In the Montreuil inventory of 1790, this pair is described as follows :  deux paires de girandoles en forme de candélabre à sept bougies chacune en bronze doré d'or moulu dessin arabesque estimated at 5400 pounds in 1788. Unusually, the girandoles are numbered 1 and 4, which proves that they were originally part of an order for at least four girandoles. We know of no other order in the 18th century for a suite of four girandoles of this model. This very large salon had nine windows opening onto a courtyard.

Other pairs of seven-branch gcandelabra belonging to the Chérémetiev and Bariatinski collections or sold at Sotheby's Monte-Carlo on 23 February 1986, lot 735 are listed; we have yet to discover the other pair, which should bear numbers two and three.

This pair of candelabra can be compared with the pair with six lights delivered by the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre by order N° 276 of October 28th, 1786, for the Salon des Nobles de la Reine at Versailles (inv. GML. 9078. 1 and 2). Slight differences can be noted between our pair and the one from Versailles: the basins and nozzles, the feet and the arms, which are spiral on ours and fluted on the others. A pair that appears to be the counterpart of the Versailles pair is illustrated in H. Ottomeyer et P. Pröschel, Vergöldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I. p. 266.

This model follows in the footsteps of those designed by Pierre-Philippe Gouthière and developed by Rémond. Rémond designed for Daguerre, who, from the early 1780s onwards, supplied important lighting fixtures to various members of the court at Versailles.