Lacarrière Frères & Delatour, Large Chandelier, France, Circa 1870

Signed Paris Lacarrière Frères & Delatour

Large Rocaille-inspired chandelier in a scalloped shape in chiseled and gilded bronze with ten lights. The baluster-shaped shaft, decorated with twisted gadroons and acanthus leaves, is topped with a pleated silk lampshade, surrounded by a gilded bronze mount from which 4 arms of light-arms decorated with acanthus emerge. Two uprights, decorated with six leafy light-arms, surround the shaft and join the ceiling light formed from a succession of balusters decorated with gadroons, foliage and shells.

Biography :
Lacarrière established a factory in 1825 at 3 bis, rue Sainte-Elisabeth. He specialized and excelled in the application of bronze in lighting fixtures. He received an honorable mention in 1834, a bronze medal in 1839, and a silver medal in 1844 for a large candelabra with a triangular base, prefiguring the one presented at the Universal Exhibition in London in 1862. He also participated in the design of the chandelier for the Queen’s Theatre in London. From 1851 to 1870, he changed his company name several times.
Lacarrière, Delatour et Cie (active in 1870) cast and chiseled the majority of the lampposts, candelabras and chandeliers of the Paris Opera, including that of the hall, designed by Charles Garnier, the architect of the Opera, and modeled by Corboz. At the 1878 Universal Exhibition, the catalogue pointed out that "their exhibition demonstrates great skill and very pure taste in lighting bronzes intended for private homes." In 1900, the company Lacarrière et Cie supplied the fourteen monumental candelabras for the Pont Alexandre III in Paris; a real feat at the time, since the largest of these pieces weighed 667 kg, was 4.50 m high and had a diameter of 4.70 m.