Ref.03127
Large bronze and cristal chandelier with tassels

Crystal chandelier in the tapissier styleFrench, Second EmpireGilded bronze and crystalsThis Napoleon III period chandelier with 12 arms and 18 lights has a gilded bronze structure upon which carved crystal drops, small flowers and pearls hang. The arms form arabesques and are richly adorned with stylized foliage and small flower blossoms. The lights are shaped like candles. Rare rope shaped suspension rods adorned with tassels support the branches, evoking the tapissier style that became very fashionable in the Second Empire. Passementerie was of the highest quality then in France and litterally filled the bourgeois houses.   

Ref.11939
Prosper LECOURTIER (after) - "Roaring lions", pair of stone garden statues

This important pair of garden statues represents two roaring lions carved out of stone, made after the famous model by the animal sculptor Prosper Lecourtier. * Shown in movement, the open den which let us imagine a powerful roar, these lions are represented with realism. They rest on bases with winding. Prosper Lecourtier is an animal sculptor born in 1851 in the Meuse region. He was Emmanuel Frémiet's student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and he inherits from his master a strong taste for wildlife. The model of the Roaring Lions is the best known model by Prosper Lecourtier, published in bronze many times. There is also a bronze version of this lion at the Museum of Art and Archeology in Guéret. It is much rarer to see these roaring lions carved out of stone, as it is for our garden statues. The only other known example is a marble version that decorates Parque Ibirapuera in São Paulo, Brazil. The great novelty brought by our lions is the design in pairs, symmetrically, which seems to be quite original.

Ref.15022
Théophile SOYER, Renaissance-Style Ornamental Dish, 1880

This enameled ornamental dish was created by Théophile Soyer in 1880. Théophile Soyer (1853-1940) learned his craft from his father, Paul Soyer, who was already practicing the technique of painted enamels, before joining the École des Beaux-Arts. He studied under Eugène Levasseur and Adolphe Yvon. He began working with enamel in Courbevoie, then joined his father's workshop, which he took over in 1896. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1870, then regularly between 1875 and 1882, as well as at the Expositions of the Union Centrale des Beaux-Arts starting in 1876. His great technical mastery was rewarded with a silver medal at the World’s Fair in 1889, and then a gold medal in 1900. Soyer actively participated in the artistic life of his time: he was successively Vice-President of the Chamber of Ceramics and Glassware and President of the Société des Éclectiques, a humorous society founded in 1872 by etchers and poets. He married Eugénie Dejoux, a painter-enameler of Genevan origin, with whom he had a daughter, Jeanne, who worked with her parents before marrying in 1906. Théophile Soyer's work was part of the troubadour and Neo-Renaissance movements, at a time when past styles were in vogue.

Ref.15513
Pair of modern crystal chandeliers, Versailles models