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Maurice Bouval Pair of Gilt Bronze "Obsession et Reve" Candelabra
$57,500
A pair of French gilt bronze candelabra, "Obsession et Rêve" (Dream and Obsession), by Maurice Bouval. Each candelabrum is in the shape of a female figural supported by a flower stem. One leaf from the stem provides these nudes with a minimal amount of modesty. Bouval's figure of Obsession leans forward and pushes back her hair provocatively. She holds herself upright with a pair of irises. The figure of Reve leans languidly against an iris. The iris was used in the fleur de lis, the emblem of the French monarchy, as it lined the Lis river, the ancestral home of the Franks. Each iris is carefully chased with veining.
- Product Details
- Curator's Notes
Item #: B-20572
Artist: Maurice Bouval
Country: France
Circa: 1898
Dimensions: 19.685" height
Materials: Gilt Bronze
Signed: "M. Bouval" on the base, and bearing the founders name "Thiébault Frères, Fumière and Gavignot successors
Literature: Similar candelabra pictured in: The Paris Salons 1895-1915, Vol. V: Objects d'Art and Metalware, by Alastair Duncan, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors' Club, 1999, p. 126.
Bouval's Reve et Obsession refers to two poems from Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal (1857), "Obsession" and "Reve Parisien." Baudelaire's poem "Reve Parisien" details a fanciful neoclassical vision of nature where naiads play in a world of jewels.