Pair of Empire Style Bronze Crossed-Arrow Wall Sconces, French Work, circa 1950

These compact bronze wall sconces present the crossed arrow as their sole and decisive ornamental motif: two arrows, set in the classic saltire — their shafts intersecting at the centre, their points and fletches radiating to the four principal axes — form at once the structural armature of the applique and its complete decorative statement. The simplicity of the composition is entirely characteristic of the Empire style at its most rigorous: no additional ornament is needed when the motif itself is so charged with meaning and so precisely rendered in cast bronze. Measuring 28.5 cm in height, they are of a scale suitable for a variety of interior situations. Dating from circa 1950, they are executed in the pure Empire taste.

The arrow was among the most potent symbols in the Napoleonic decorative vocabulary, codified by the architects Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine in their seminal Recueil de décorations intérieures (1801 and 1812) as one of the essential motifs of the Empire style. Individual arrows evoked Apollo, the sun, and divine authority; quivers referred to Cupid and romantic allegory; and crossed arrows carried a specifically martial resonance — the bundled or crossed weapon as a symbol of military power, victory, and the Roman tradition from which Napoleon drew his imperial imagery. This vocabulary was revived with great enthusiasm in French decorative arts of the 1940s and 1950s, when a renewed taste for Empire-period design animated the productions of Parisian ateliers and luxury bronze manufacturers, yielding a generation of Empire revival sconces, andirons, mounts, and chandeliers of which these appliques are fine representatives.

This pair is in fine condition, the bronze casting crisp and the surface well preserved. Their modest scale — 19.5 cm wide and 28.5 cm high — lends them exceptional versatility: equally at home in a study, bedroom, or corridor, and their strong graphic quality makes them effective at a variety of distances. As pure expressions of the Empire ornamental vocabulary, they will complement period furniture and classically composed interiors with equal authority.