Palatial Pair of English Baroque Style 19th Century Carved Marble Sitting Lions

A superb quality and palatial pair of French 19th century lifesize cast-iron sculptures - torcheres of Native American Indians titled "L’ Indienne" designed by Jules Salmson (French, 1823-1902) and Cast by Le Fonderies d'Art du Val d'Osne, each standing figure representing a Native American Indian male and a female scantily dressed in their native robes, one arm raised holding a light-torch with an opaline glass globe, both wearing earrings, seashell necklaces and arm-braces, raised on cylindrical cast-iron stand. Signed/cast on each pedestal: “VAL D’OSNE”. (Electrified). Paris, circa 1870-1880. Overall hHeight: 127 inches (322.6 cm) Pedestal height: 39 inches (99.1 cm) Indian man's width: 22 inches (55.9 cm) Indian man's depth: 26 3/4 inches (68 cm) Indian woman's width: 28 inches (71.1 cm) Indian woman's depth: 25 inches (63.5 cm) These fantastic and impressive pair of cast-iron sculptures, most likely representing Hiawatha and Minnehaha, were probably comissioned to Le Fonderies d'Art du Val d'Osne for export to the America's to decorate governmental buildings and parks which makes these pair a rare find and now available for a private collection. Iron sculptures were preferred over bronze for outdoor park and building decorations for their long lasting resistance to all types of weather conditions. An identical pair of sculptures, also by Val d' Osne, are currently exhibited at the National Garden of Congress in Santiago, Chile. View Pages No. 87, 88, 89. Another identical pair are also currently exhibited at The Musée de la Ville - Indian Museum "O Indio do Museo da Cidade" in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Another identical pair decorate the front of the Ópera Teatro Amazonas, Manaús, Brazil. A single figure of the female Indian...

A Monumental Museum Quality Pair of French 19th Century Figural Gilt and Patinated Bronze Rosso Granite Marble Flambeaux Urns, each depicting a pair of standing allegorical and whims...

A very fine pair of palatial Venetian walnut carved mid-19th century Baroque figural throne armchairs, attributed to Valentino Panciera Besarel (Venice, 1829-1902) in the manner of Andrea Brustolon (1662-1732). The ornately carved thrones, each flanked with figures of standing males supporting a branch-carved armrests with vines. Raised on cabriolet scrolled legs. Provenance: The Castello di Giove in Umbria, Italy, circa 1870-1880. Height: 54 1/4 inches (137.8 cm.) Width: 37 1/4 inches (94.6 cm.) Depth: 32 inches (81.3 cm.) Andrea Brustolon (20 July 1662 – 25 October 1732) was an Italian sculptor in wood. He is known for his furnishings in the Baroque style and devotional sculptures. Biography He was trained in a vigorous local tradition of sculpture in his native Belluno, in the Venetian terraferma, and in the studio of the Genoese sculptor Filippo Parodi, who was carrying out commissions at Padua and at Venice (1677). He spent the years 1678-80 at Rome, where the High Baroque sculpture of Bernini and his contemporaries polished his style. Apart from that, the first phase of Brustolon's working career was spent in Venice, 1680–1685. Brustolon is documented at several Venetian churches where he executed decorative carving in such profusion that he must have quickly assembled a large studio of assistants. As with his contemporary in London, Grinling Gibbons almost all the high quality robust Baroque carving in Venice has been attributed to Brustolon at one time or another. In the Venetian Ghetto, at the Scola Levantina, Brustolon provided the woodwork for the synagogue on the piano nobile, where the carved, canopied bimah is supported on Solomonic columns, which Brustolon had seen in Bernini's baldacchino in the Basilica of St Peter's. His furniture included armchairs with figural sculptures that take the place of front legs and armrest supports, inspired by his experience of Bernini's Cathedra Petri. The gueridon, a tall stand for a candelabrum, offered Brustolon unhampered possibilities for variations of the idea of a caryatid or atlas: the familiar Baroque painted and ebonized figural gueridons, endlessly reproduced since the eighteenth century, found their models in Brustolon's work. His secular commissions from Pietro Venier, of the Venier di San Vio family (a suite of forty sculptural pieces that can be seen in the Sala di Brustolon of the Ca' Rezzonico, Venice), from the Pisani of Strà, and from the Correr di San Simeone families encourage the attribution to him of some extravagantly rich undocumented moveable furniture. Andrea Brustolon's elaborate carved furniture aspired towards the condition of sculpture, such as the Dutch bases for console tables which look like enlargements of the work of the two Van Vianens, Paulus and Adam, perhaps the greatest Dutch silversmiths of the period. These carved pieces display the baroque tendency to develop a form three-dimensionally in space. Brustolon's walnut, boxwood and ebony pieces transcend ordinary functional limitations of furniture; they are constructed of elaborately carved figures. The framework of Brustolon's chairs, side tables and gueridons were carved as gnarled tree branches, with further supports of putti and male figures carved in ebony. Backrests of the chairs, which were never touched in the rigidly upright posture that contemporary etiquette demanded, were carved with allegories of vanity, fire and music, etc. The most extravagant piece delivered for Pietro Venier was a large side table and vase-stand of box and ebony, designed as a single ensemble to display rare imported Japanese porcelain vases. The eclectic allegories include Hercules with the Hydra and Cerberus, males and reclining river-gods (see ref.). For the Correr, less extrovert chairs bear female nudes extended along the armrests. For the Pisani, he carved a suite of twelve chairs (now at the Palazzo Quirinale) with flowers, fruit, leaves and branches to symbolize the twelve months of the year. Work by Brustolon is at the Villa Pisani at Stra. In 1685 Brustolon returned to the house where he was born at Belluno, and from that time devoted himself mainly to tabernacles and devotional sculptures in walnut, boxwood or ivory. His polychromed ivory Corpus from a crucifix is in the Museo Civico di Belluno, which preserves some of Brustolon's preparatory drawings for frames to be carved with putti displaying emblems. A pair of boxwood sculptures, The Sacrifice of Abraham and Jacob Wrestling with the Angel...

A fine Palatial Italian, 19th century baroque style vigorously carved Florentine giltwood mirror frame. The ornately carved frame with scrolls, acanth...

A large and impressive pair of palatial Chinese hand carved large and heavy Chinese lions. These lions were used as a symbol of good fortune and to keep away evil spirits . Very heav...

Hand-carved pair of Carara marble, 19th century, Italy, darkened from age, very heavy weighing about 175lbs each. Some minor chips to marble. In good shape overall. Priced and sold a...

A pair of recumbent lions curved together, set on shaped base.

Beautiful hand carved marble angel. Made out of one piece, France, circa 1850. Weathered and small losses. More pictures are available on request.