19TH/20TH CENTURY, WITH PARTS POSSIBLY EARLIER

With its elegant trellis frame, beaded swags and harmonious proportions, this chandelier relates to Louis XIV examples called lustres à lacé, occasionally supplied by the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi for the Royal fêtes and ceremonies organized by the King's household, or maison du Roi, and for general court entertainment. Such lustres à lacé or en treillage were considered precious objects, as evidenced by the commission for a lustre en treillage by Madame de Pompadour for the château de Crécy and subsequent commission by Louis XV himself, several months after his maîtresse-en-chef, for a chandelier of the same model, see P. Verlet, Les Bronzes Dorés Français du XVIIIème Siècle, Paris, 1987, p. 94. As Verlet further discusses, the abbé Jaubert distinguishes between three types of chandeliers in his Dictionnaire des Arts et Métiers, re-published in 1773: lustre 'à tige découverte,' 'à consoles' and 'à lacé', such as the present lot, 'à cause des entrelacs de petits grains de verre dont ils sont presque tout couverts,' see op. cit., p. 93.

Unsurprisingly, the retail of luxurious chandeliers comprised a specialty of some of the most celebrated Parisian marchands-merciers including Lazare-Duvaux, Claude-François Julliot and Delaroue. Julliot is recorded to have supplied a ‘grand et beau chandelier de cristal de roche à six bobèches' to Louis XV in 1739 that was placed in the Petite Galerie at the château de Versailles. Related examples of Louis XIV chandeliers sold at auction include one sold from the Collection of A. Jerrold Perenchio; Christie's, New York, 15 September 2020, lot 150 (sold $28,000); Christie's, Monaco, 16-17 June 2001, lot 743; one offered Christie’s, New York, 24 November 1998, lot 50; and another sold Christie's, Monaco, 13 December 1997, lot 103.

The fashionable taste for 'lustre à lacé' was not only prevalent in France but also very much au goût du jour in Sweden, as illustrated by a closely related chandelier supplied to the Swedish Crown in 1754 for the significant sum of 3,000 livres, now at Drottningholm, see op. cit, p. 93, fig. 103. As in the case of the two abovementioned Louis XIV examples sold at Christie's, Monaco, the Drottningholm chandelier was—very appropriately—surmounted by a crown denoting the Royal connection. Besides Sweden, such chandeliers were also popular on the Italian peninsula. North Italian masters often embellished this model with colored beading. Piedmontese examples include a chandelier formerly in the collection of Pietro Accorsi, Turin and another in the Palazzina di Caccia at Stupinigi, see G. Mariacher, Illuminazione in Italia dal Quattrocento all'Ottocento, Milan, 1965, p. 106.