Pair of Louis XV Style Bronze Wall Sconces, French Work, circa 1920

This fine pair of wall sconces is cast in patinated bronze in the Louis XV taste, their forms animated by sinuous C-scrolls, acanthus leaves, and floral cartouches characteristic of the Rococo vocabulary. Each arm sweeps outward from a central escutcheon, terminating in a bobeche fitted for an electric candle. The rich warm tone of the bronze lends the ensemble an air of authentic period refinement.

The Rococo style, born at the court of Louis XV in the 1720s under the auspices of designers such as Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier and Nicolas Pineau, represented a decisive departure from the ponderous grandeur of Louis XIV's Versailles. Where the Sun King had favoured monumental symmetry, the new taste embraced asymmetry, lightness, and the sinuous play of organic forms drawn from shells, foliage, and flowing water. Translated into bronze wall lighting, this aesthetic produced some of the most celebrated appliques of eighteenth-century France, and the style remained a touchstone for French bronziers well into the Belle Époque and the early twentieth century.

Offered as a pair, these sconces present an ideal solution for symmetrical hanging above a chimneypiece, flanking a looking-glass, or adorning the walls of a salon furnished in the Louis XV or transitional manner. Their fine casting and warm patination speak to the accomplished metalwork traditions of the French decorative arts workshops active in the years around 1920, when the production of quality historicist bronzes reached its apogee before the definitive triumph of Modernism.