Pair of Louis XV Gilt Bronze Figural Chenets (Andirons)

Each with a recumbent winged sphinx with scrolling foliate arabesques to their back, upon a bow-ended rectangular gadrooned plinth, the frieze with a panel applied with entrelacs, on fluted toupie feet. Several models of chenets with sphinx exist, dating from the 1780s. An example with winged sphinxes with headresses and with female mask centering the frieze, attributed to either Pierre Gouthière or Pierre-Philippe Thomire, exists in several versions in the Louvre, Versailles and the Cleveland Museum of Art (see H. Ottomeyer/P. Pröschel et al., Vergoldete Bronzen, Munich, 1986, vol.I, p.276, fig. 4.11.14.). This model is based on a drawing by the architect François-Joseph Bélanger in the Bibliothèque Nationale, illustrated op. cit., fig. 4.11.13. Another type of sphinx chenet...

Each Greek style classically draped male figure raising a three-light oil lamp shaped top on a square stepped plinth.

Each patinated bronze classically draped female figure supporting an acanthus-cast nozzle above a leaftip drip pan and tasseled cushion, raised on a circular base cast with palmettes.

Each with a foliate-cast tapering fluted and backplate decorated with swags and surmounted by a swagged flaming classical urn, issuing foliate scrolled branches with gadrooned nozzle...