Pair of Empire Style Bronze Wall Sconces with Lion Heads and Mirror Backs, French Work, Circa 1940

This handsome pair of wall sconces is cast in bronze in the Empire style, each piece featuring lion's head mounts — a characteristic motif of the Napoleonic decorative vocabulary — and backed with a mirror plate that reflects and amplifies the candlelight. The lion's head, drawn from Roman imperial iconography, became one of the most recognisable emblems of the First Empire style, appearing on furniture, gilt bronzes, and decorative objects alike. The combination of bronze and mirrored glass gives these sconces a rich, theatrical presence on any wall.

The First Empire style, developed under the patronage of Napoleon Bonaparte and his court architects Percier and Fontaine, drew heavily on the iconography of ancient Rome, Egypt, and Greece, incorporating motifs such as lion heads, eagles, sphinxes, laurel wreaths, and fasces into a grandiloquent decorative vocabulary. French bronziers — including the celebrated ateliers of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine — perpetuated this tradition with great virtuosity well into the twentieth century, producing gilt and patinated bronze objects of the highest quality. Sconces made in the Empire spirit during the 1930s and 1940s drew directly on original period models and casting techniques.

This pair brings the grandeur of the Empire aesthetic to any interior with elegance and authority. The mirrored backplates multiply the visual depth of the wall they adorn, while the bronze lion heads add sculptural distinction. They are perfectly suited to a classical salon, a library, a dining room, or an entrance hall, and pair beautifully with Empire or Directoire furniture, marble consoles, and period mirrors.