Italian Bronze Cherub Planter, 20th Century

20th century, Italian bronze planter or Gueridon Measures: cm W 56 x maximum diameter 51 x H 90. H on the floor of the wide 81 cm This refined planter was made in Italy, in Naples, towards the Early 20th Century in the style of «Retour d'Egypte». It consists of a tripod structure in finely chiselled gilded bronze and lacquered in tones. Each leg originates with scroll decorations and phytomorphic elements with golden details, supported by a sphinx with hairstyle, tail and golden wings. This sits on a curvilinear and wavy element decorated with golden ramage and a man’s head with a long beard of classic taste. The legs end with an injured foot and rest on a tripartite base that connects them. In the middle of each leg there is a bronze junction with curls and volutes that converges towards the others in the center, where a vertical element contributes to the momentum and gracefulness of the whole. The basin of the planter is in lacquered tin, with gold edges and reserves. The rising part of the tub has some holes that allow the breathability of the space. This tripod is inspired, with variations, to a famous model of the brothers Luigi and Antonio Manfredini, active in Milan at the beginning of the nineteenth century, financed by the viceroy of Italy Eugenio de Beauharnais, adopted son of Napoleon Bonaparte, for the opening of the real manufacture of Eugenia. The Retour d'Egypte style was widely echoed in France and Europe and originated from General Bonaparte’s military campaign in Egypt in 1799. The fashion of the Egyptians had already in Italy found a previous interpreter in the engraver Giovan Battista Piranesi, but the vast diffusion that also had in the furniture the Egyptian ornament...

Beautifully detailed white marble planters featuring flower design along the sides. Items are sold as a set of two. Origin; Italy.