Vannes, 1784, Pair Of Solid Silver Candlesticks, The Du Pérenno De Penvern Family, Persquen

Pair of Silver Candlesticks Bearing the Alliance Arms of the du Pérenno de Penvern and de La Chapelle Families

Vannes, 1784
Joseph-Pierre-Marie Tiret, master silversmith
Solid silver
Height: 25.3 cm
Diameter of the bases: 14 cm
Total weight: 1,040 g

Important pair of solid silver candlesticks made in Vannes in 1784 by Joseph-Pierre-Marie Tiret. The moulded, shaped bases support tall stems composed of alternating knops, rings and fluted sections, terminating in cylindrical, vertically fluted sockets.

Each candlestick is engraved with the alliance arms of Paul-Romain-Guy du Pérenno de Penvern, an officer in the French Royal Navy, and his wife Marie-Bonne-Renée de La Chapelle. Together with François du Pérenno, Paul-Romain-Guy’s father, the couple was closely associated with the construction and completion in 1771 of the Château de Penvern at Persquen, the ancestral seat of a family established there since the late Middle Ages.

Joseph-Pierre-Marie Tiret, whose maker’s mark was registered in Vannes in 1765, was one of the leading silversmiths active in the city during the final decades of the Ancien Régime. His known work includes domestic silver, armorial pieces and an important body of ecclesiastical silver preserved in churches throughout the Morbihan. Among his finest recorded secular works is a substantial pair of covered vegetable dishes made in Vannes in 1788.

Monumental in scale and remarkable for their documented heraldic provenance, these candlesticks constitute a rare and important example of eighteenth-century silver from Vannes.