Neo-gothic Chandelier With Lions, France, Circa 1860

Beautiful neo-gothic chandelier in patinated bronze with gold highlights and water green opaline. The central shaft, decorated with cartridges in imitation of coats of arms, is decorated with gargoyle heads from which two branches of foliage interlacing emerge, with two erect lions leaning on them. A circular opaline lampshade, surrounded by a frieze of openwork flowers and topped with a leafy crown, covers the whole.

The very architectural and precise design of this lantern evokes the creations of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879), who was not only a renowned theorician, but above all an accomplished architect, whose genius lay in his acute observation of medieval buildings in view of their restoration, as well as the continuation of the Gothic style in architecture and decorative arts.

The Gothic style was brought back into fashion by the architect Jacques Hittorf (1792-1867) with the decorations made for the coronation of Charles X in 1824. It had a great success among the public with the success of literary works such as “Notre-Dame de Paris” by Victor Hugo in 1831 or the play by Alexandre Dumas, « La Tour de Nesle » in 1832. The furniture also followed the trend, as the neo-gothic salon of the princesse Marie d’Orléans in the Tuileries castle, or the neo-Gothic cabinet of the Count and Countess of Osmond in their Parisian hotel.