The J. Paul Getty Museum

Pair of Wall Lights

Object Details

Title:

Pair of Wall Lights

Artist/Maker:

Philippe Caffieri (French, 1714 - 1774, master 1743)

Culture:

French

Place:

Paris, France (Place Created)

Date:

about 1765–1770

Medium:

Gilt bronze

Object Number:

82.DF.35

Dimensions:

64.8 × 41.9 × 31.1 cm (25 1/2 × 16 1/2 × 12 1/4 in.)

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Object Description

One of the most famous bronze casters of the 1700s, Philippe Caffieri created gilt-bronze objects, like these wall lights, for royalty and nobility throughout Europe. Caffieri produced wall lights of this design, decorated with urns and garlands, for the king of Poland. In 1769, Caffieri sent a letter to the king, telling him that he had sent nineteen pairs of this kind of wall light, twelve large and seven smaller, to the Polish royal household. The museum’s wall lights may have been among those delivered to the palace in Warsaw. A drawing that Caffieri made to show his ideas for these fittings still exists in Poland.

The museum has another group of wall lights of this design (see 78.DF.263).

Provenance
Provenance
about 1767 -

Possibly commissioned for Stanislaw August Poniatowski, king of Poland, Polish, 1732 - 1798 (Warsaw, Poland)
Note: Caffieri sent a large group of wall lights of this design to the king of Poland to be used in his palace, but we do not know for sure that this pair was among them.

- 1934

Henri Smulders, Dutch, 1863 - 1933 [sold, from a set of four, Collection de feu M. - Henri Smulders, Antiquities - Objets d'Art, Frederik Muller & Co. (Mensing & Fils), Amsterdam, June 26-27, 1934, lot 98]

- 1980

Lee Greenway (Los Angeles, CA) [sold, Decorative Arts, Property of Various Owners, Sotheby Parke Bernet, Los Angeles, October 21, 1980, lot 787A, to Alexander & Berendt Ltd.]

1980 - 1982

Alexander & Berendt Ltd. (London, England), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1982.

Bibliography
Bibliography

Frederik Muller & Co. Collection de feu M. - Henri Smulders, Antiquities - Objets d'Art. June 26-27, 1934, p. 3, lot 98, ill.

Sotheby Parke Bernet. Decorative Arts, Property of Various Owners. October 21, 1980, lot 787A, ill.

Wilson, Gillian. Selections from the Decorative Arts in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1983), pp. 70-71, no. 35.

Wilson, Gillian, Adrian Sassoon, and Charissa Bremer-David. "Acquisitions Made by the Department of Decorative Arts in 1982." The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 11 (1983), pp. 51-53, no. 10, figs. 69-71, entry by Adrian Sassoon.

"Some Acquisitions (1981-82) in the Department of Decorative Arts, The J. Paul Getty Museum." The Burlington Magazine 125, no. 962 (May 1983), p. 324, fig. 113.

Ottomeyer, Hans, and Peter Pröschel, eds. Vergoldete Bronzen: Die Bronzearbeiten des Spätbarock und Klassizismus. Vol 1, Katalog der Bronzearbeiten (Munich: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1986), pp. 190-191, figs. 3.10.4.1-.4.

Sassoon, Adrian, and Gillian Wilson. Decorative Arts: A Handbook of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1986), p. 60, no. 133.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 1st ed. (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1986), p. 173.

Verlet, Pierre. Les Bronzes dorés français du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Picard Éditeur, 1987), pp. 198-99, 252-53, 290, 293, figs. 228, 267.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 2nd ed. (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1988), p. 173 (only 1 ill.).

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 3rd ed. (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991), p. 189.

Bremer-David, Charissa, et al. Decorative Arts: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1993), p. 104, no. 170.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 4th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), p. 220, ill. (only 1).

Christie's, New York. The Alexander Collection. April 30, 1999, p. 246, ill.

Wilson, Gillian, and Catherine Hess. Summary Catalogue of European Decorative Arts in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001), p. 86, no. 172.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 6th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001), p. 220, ill. (only 1).

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 7th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), p. 243, ill. (only 1).

Baarsen, Reinier. Paris 1650-1900: Decorative Arts in the Rijksmuseum (New Haven: Yale University Press, with Rijksmuseum, 2013), p. 383.