Pair Of Large Chiseled And Gilded Bronze Andirons Attributed To Pitoin, Transition Period

Pair of large andirons in chased and gilded bronze attributed to Pitoin from the Transition period.
Decorated with fire pots and obelisks resting on a fluted pedestal adorned with lion muzzles.

Used condition, missing one ring, wear to the gilding and bolts and nuts changed.

H. 45 x W. 42 x D. 60 cm

These andirons were certainly made at the end of the 1760s by Quentin-Claude Pitoin (circa 1725-1777), the famous bronzier of the Garde-Meuble. In 1767, Pitoin delivered two pairs of this type to the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, the first for the bedroom of Madame Victoire at the Château de Saint-Hubert, the second for the Palais de Saint-Cloud. A few years later, in November 1773, the bronzier made a new delivery, this time for the apartments of the Count of Artois at the Château de Versailles; The Garde-Meuble newspaper then mentioned a pair of andirons similar to ours: "Another fire with a vase ending in a flame with overlap on which are placed two smaller vases with handles on pedestals with consoles decorated with lion masks with their skins and hanging paws" (AN, O/1/3319, folio 120 verso). Currently, two other very similar pairs are known, one preserved at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Lyon is illustrated in Svend Eriksen, Early Neoclassicism in France, 1974, fig.224; the other, described as early as 1775 in the grand salon of the Château de Montgeoffroy, property of Marshal de Contades, has remained in this same room ever since (see P. Verlet, La maison du XVIIIe siècle en France, Fribourg, 1966, p.219).