Pair Of Wall-mounted Side Tables Featuring Satyr And Bacchus Figures, Gilded Wood, Baroque Style, 17th Century (2 Pieces)

Pair of wall sconces featuring Bacchic fauns, gilded wood, late 17th-century Baroque style

Rare pair of carved and gilded wall sconces, decorated with grinning Bacchic fauns, framed by vine leaves, grape clusters, and plant motifs. European work from the late 17th / early 18th century, in the Baroque style.

The carving is strikingly beautiful: the faces emerge from the mass of wood with striking expressiveness. The open mouths, elongated eyes, furrowed brows, and animated features give these fauns a theatrical presence, at once grotesque, Bacchic, and mysterious. The vine and the grape clusters directly link these figures to the world of Bacchus, wine, ancient rites, celebration, and sacred intoxication. Here we find all the appeal of Baroque decoration: movement, controlled excess, vivid relief, and a taste for fountain masks and the sense of emergence.

These relief fauns possess an intense decorative charm, somewhere between woodwork mascarons, fragments of antique decor, and objects from a cabinet of curiosities. Their grimacing, almost ritualistic expressions lend them a more secretive dimension, with a distinctly esoteric flavor. The work in linden wood displays a vigorous, deep, and highly decorative carving. The antique gilding, worn in places, reveals red and brown hues that accentuate the volumes and enhance the perception of the relief. The upper shelves are separate and screwed onto the carved elements. They appear to have been added later or modified at a later date to transform these decorative elements into wall-mounted consoles. This feature is visible in the photographs and is part of the object’s history.

Original condition with wear, scuffs, small chips, gilding repairs, cracks on the reverse, mounting marks, and differences between the two elements. The set retains a very beautiful wall-mounted effect, ideal for a Baroque interior, a château setting, a gallery, an antique library, or a cabinet of curiosities.

Dimensions: height 28 cm and 26 cm without the hooks; width 32 cm.