Empire Gilt Bronze Lamp After Boizot (1743-1809)

Refined 19th-century sculpture lamp in finely chased ormolu after the "l'Etude" model in Sèvres by Louis-Simon BOIZOT (1743-1809), probably created under the direction of the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre. Empire-style composition featuring an antique-style young woman holding a papyrus, seated on an oblong oil lamp resting on a fluted quadrangular base. Good general and electrical condition, beautiful gilding (trace of usual wear) Dimensions: 38 cm total height / bronze 27 cm X 23 cm long X 10 cm deep

L'Etude and Le Philosophe created in 1776 by Louis-Simon Boizot for the Manufacture de Sèvres, where he had been director of the sculpture workshop since 1773. The plaster models are still preserved today in the Manufacture's collections (fig. 1 and 2).during this period, Boizot repeatedly gave models to the most important founders, chasers and gilders of his time, collaborating in particular with Pierre Gouthière (1732-1813, master gilder-chaser in 1758), Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751-1843, master founder in 1772) and above all François Rémond (1747-1812, master gilder in 1774). The models of L'Etude and Le Philosophe were used both directly by Sèvres, which distributed them on pedestals or, as shown here, mounted on antique oil lamps in patinated and gilded bronze. Rémond executed them in bronze for the merchant Daguerre from 1783. It was probably this same Daguerre who had the idea of using these models, with variations, for clocks and andirons. A watercolor drawing dated circa 1785, illustrating a fireplace and its fittings, kept in Paris at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and attributed to Thomire, shows precisely the figure of the Philosopher mounted on an "antique lamp".