Maison Mottheau et Fils Scientific Instruments

An esteemed producer of bronze for many of Paris’s prestigious cabinetmakers during the late 19th century, Maison Mottheau et Fils is also renowned for elaborate furniture designs that combine function and decoration.

Throughout the late 1800s, Maison Mottheau et Fils designed and produced decorative gilt-bronze objets d’art and furniture, including ormolu-mounted tea tables and ornate Neoclassical-style clocks. However, the company was mostly known for its lines of exquisite Louis XVI wall lights, chandeliers, candelabras and lanterns. With the introduction of electricity in the 1890s, Maison Mottheau et Fils incorporated the new technology into its lighting fixtures, and the company flourished. 

Maison Mottheau et Fils was inspired by famed bronzier Pierre Gouthière (1740–1806) in many of its designs; it also collaborated with several well-known French sculptors. Among them was Frédéric-Eugène Piat (1827–1903), who designed an onyx and gilt-bronze torchère lumineuse for the company that was shown at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Maison Mottheau et Fils’s display also featured a pair of large Napoleon III gilt-bronze candelabras, each lit by ten electric lights. 

The company’s electrical lighting exhibit garnered critical acclaim, prompting the Art Journal to write in 1900 that the “French Section shows many examples of fine work applied under the new conditions, but we doubt if a more complete success is to be recorded to the credit of any exhibitor that can be conceded to Messieurs Mottheau et Fils.”

Today, pieces by Maison Mottheau et Fils continue to be highly sought by collectors of late 19th-century furniture.

On 1stDibs, discover a range of antique Maison Mottheau et Fils lighting, decorative objects and other furniture and collectibles.