These magnificent chenets epitomize the playful spirit of the Louis XV 'pittoresque' style of the late 1740s. Boldly sculptural, they are conceived in the form of various finely-chased scrolls, each with a wolf to one side. With their distinctive waved scrolls and gadrooned motifs to the rockwork, they relate to various bronzes d’ameublement executed by sculpteur, fondeur et ciseleur du Roi Jacques Caffiéri (1678-1755), most notably the wall-lights and other items purchased by Madame Infante, Louise-Elizabeth of France, duchesse de Parma, for the Palazzo di Colorno and sent to Colorno in 1752-1753 (C. Bremer-David, Decorative Arts, An Illustrated Summary Catalogue of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1993, p. 103, no. 168). They may also relate to a pair of chenets signed ‘Caffieri fecit’, which have similar scrolls and cast and molded motifs. These are in the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris (H. Ottomeyer, P. Pröschel, et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol. I, p. 112, fig. 2.4.3).

Their design relates closely to a drawing by Lambert Sigisbert Adam for a chenet with Triton astride a sea horse (illustrated in P. Fuhring, Design Into Art, London 1981, vol. I, fig. 581). A pair of chenets based directly on this drawing, possibly supplied to the comte de Toulouse, was sold at Christie's, Monaco, 15 December 1996, lot 80. A pair of chenets of the present model was sold Christie's, London, 13 November 2018, lot 209; another similar pair was sold from the Greta Garbo Collection, Sotheby's, New York, 15 November 1990, lot 144. A similar model in the Collection of Akram Ojjeh was sold Sotheby's, Monaco, 25-26 June 1979, lot 139.