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Lot Essay
These large and elegant wall-lights are of a model that otherwise seems unrecorded: they were probably conceived and made as an individual commission, with a particular room in mind. Although clearly inspired by Parisian prototypes, both their design and the technique of their execution point to them having been made in Italy. From a technical point of view, it is most notable that the thin acorn leaves are individually produced from repoussé models, rather than being integrally cast.
The two beautifully modelled boys that seem to reach for a pair of billing doves find close stylistic parallels in a number of gilt-bronze fittings made for the residences of the Dukes of Savoy in and around Turin by the sculptor and bronze-worker Francesco Ladatte (1706-1787). Their type is already encountered in Ladatte’s first important Savoy commission, the reliefs of the four seasons executed for a celebrated pair of marquetry cabinets on console tables made by Pietro Piffetti in 1731-1733 for the Palazzo Reale in Turin (Enrico Colle, Angela Griseri and Roberto Valeriani, Bronzi Decorativi in Italia, Milan 2001, no. 35). Particularly closely related are the boys on a pair of wall-lights of about 1740-1745, now in the Museo Civico de Arte Antica in Turin, and those on an altar, made around 1749-1751 for the sanctuary at Vicoforte (idem, nos. 36-37). The trophies of a flaming torch and a quiver full of arrows, bound by a wreath of naturalistic flowers, indicate that the present wall-lights were made at the brink of the advent of neo-classicism; comparable motifs in the ‘antique’ style occur, for example, on an enormous gilt-bronze cartel clock which Ladatte delivered for the Palazzo Reale in 1775, towards the end of his career (idem, no. 42). The prominent and lifelike, attenuated oak branches express the same move away from the exaggerated curvaceousness of the rococo style.
The Turin-born Ladatte went to Paris in 1718 in the retinue of Prince Vittorio Amedeo of Savoy. It is not known whom he trained with, but in 1729 he obtained the premier prix for sculpture at the Paris Academy, after which he went to study in Rome. Even after he had executed his first important commissions for the Savoy court he frequently returned to Paris, exhibiting at the salons between 1737 and 1743 and obviously keeping abreast of the latest developments. In 1745 he was named Scultore in Bronzi di Sua Maestà (i.e. King Carlo Emanuele III), and from then on he became the principal supplier of bronzes d’ameublement to the royal court at Turin. Initially influenced by the art of Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (also originally from Turin), Thomas Germain and the other major artists of Parisian early rococo, Ladatte went on to develop an unmistakably Italian, eminently sculptural style, of which the present wall-lights are particularly fine examples.
The two beautifully modelled boys that seem to reach for a pair of billing doves find close stylistic parallels in a number of gilt-bronze fittings made for the residences of the Dukes of Savoy in and around Turin by the sculptor and bronze-worker Francesco Ladatte (1706-1787). Their type is already encountered in Ladatte’s first important Savoy commission, the reliefs of the four seasons executed for a celebrated pair of marquetry cabinets on console tables made by Pietro Piffetti in 1731-1733 for the Palazzo Reale in Turin (Enrico Colle, Angela Griseri and Roberto Valeriani, Bronzi Decorativi in Italia, Milan 2001, no. 35). Particularly closely related are the boys on a pair of wall-lights of about 1740-1745, now in the Museo Civico de Arte Antica in Turin, and those on an altar, made around 1749-1751 for the sanctuary at Vicoforte (idem, nos. 36-37). The trophies of a flaming torch and a quiver full of arrows, bound by a wreath of naturalistic flowers, indicate that the present wall-lights were made at the brink of the advent of neo-classicism; comparable motifs in the ‘antique’ style occur, for example, on an enormous gilt-bronze cartel clock which Ladatte delivered for the Palazzo Reale in 1775, towards the end of his career (idem, no. 42). The prominent and lifelike, attenuated oak branches express the same move away from the exaggerated curvaceousness of the rococo style.
The Turin-born Ladatte went to Paris in 1718 in the retinue of Prince Vittorio Amedeo of Savoy. It is not known whom he trained with, but in 1729 he obtained the premier prix for sculpture at the Paris Academy, after which he went to study in Rome. Even after he had executed his first important commissions for the Savoy court he frequently returned to Paris, exhibiting at the salons between 1737 and 1743 and obviously keeping abreast of the latest developments. In 1745 he was named Scultore in Bronzi di Sua Maestà (i.e. King Carlo Emanuele III), and from then on he became the principal supplier of bronzes d’ameublement to the royal court at Turin. Initially influenced by the art of Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (also originally from Turin), Thomas Germain and the other major artists of Parisian early rococo, Ladatte went on to develop an unmistakably Italian, eminently sculptural style, of which the present wall-lights are particularly fine examples.