BRONZE CANDLESTICKS BY FERDINAND BARBEDIENNE

Ferdinand Barbedienne was the most prestigious bronze caster of the Second Empire, known as the 'Gutenberg of statuary'. By partnering with Achille Collas, inventor of a novel system for reducing the scale of sculptures in the round, they began the mass production of reduced copies of famous sculptures and bronze objects of their own design, including the most important institutional commissions.

These candlesticks from the mid-19th century are a good example of the level of excellence they achieved and condense the entire aesthetic ideal of the taste of the time, with abundant and elaborate ornamentation resulting from an unexpected historicist eclecticism.