Two wall sconces (Bras de cheminée) ca. 1761 Model attributed to Jean-Claude Duplessis Shortly after the first porcelain plaques were made at Sèvres for the purpose of embellishing furniture, the factory further expanded the role of porcelain in the realm of furnishings by producing wall sconces that served a functional purpose in addition to a decorative one. The factory archives indicate that Jean-Claude Duplessis (Italian, ca. 1695–1774), who was responsible for new models at Sèvres, provided a design for a wall sconce in 1760.[1] Duplessis’s training as a goldsmith and bronze founder is ev
Two wall sconces (Bras de cheminée) ca. 1761 Model attributed to Jean-Claude Duplessis Shortly after the first porcelain plaques were made at Sèvres for the purpose of embellishing furniture, the factory further expanded the role of porcelain in the realm of furnishings by producing wall sconces that served a functional purpose in addition to a decorative one. The factory archives indicate that Jean-Claude Duplessis (Italian, ca. 1695–1774), who was responsible for new models at Sèvres, provided a design for a wall sconce in 1760.[1] Duplessis’s training as a goldsmith and bronze founder is evident in the highly sculptural and boldly scrolling forms of the design, which clearly derives from the gilt-bronze wall-sconce designs from the years 1750–60.[2] The attenuated scrolling vegetal forms punctuated with berries that compose the porcelain model reflect a direct borrowing of the standard elements also used for rococo gilt-bronze wall sconces,[3] although the porcelain version does not incorporate the asymmetry that characterizes many of the gilt-bronze examples. Duplessis pushed the technical limits of soft-paste porcelain by creating a design in which three arms spring from a central shaft with minimal structural support, requiring the medium to function more like metal than a relatively fragile ceramic body. The demands on the porcelain are evident in the small firing cracks visible where the curvature of the arms is most extreme. The factory’s willingness to create a form that previously had been executed only in metal reflects the spirit of innovation that characterized the factory’s production in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. The wall sconces were not the first objects made at Sèvres intended to support candles. The model for the elephant-head vase with candleholders (vase à tête d’éléphant) was designed in 1756,[4] and a potpourri vase with candleholders (pot-pourri à bobèche) appeared in 1759;[5] both are almost certainl
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