Lot 126: Design for an elaborate candelabrum with a classical figure holding two cornucopia supporting an urn and five lights

Jean-Guillaume Moitte (Paris 1746-1810)
Design for an elaborate candelabrum with a classical figure holding two cornucopia supporting an urn and five lights
black lead, pen and grey ink, grey and black wash
21 5/8 x 14 5/8 in. (55.4 x 37.2 cm.)

G. Gramaccini, Jean-Guillaume Moitte (1746-1810): Leben Und Werk, Berlin, 1993, II, p. 66, no. 159.22

Henri Auguste, until 1810.
J.B.C. Odiot, his studio stamp and number '416' (twice).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, Monaco, 26 November 1979, lot 624.
With Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, London, 1989.

Moitte's candelabrum design in the antique or arabesque fashion dates from around 1790, and features a caryatic vestal bearing Ceres' cornucopiae or horns-of-plenty and a laurel-garlanded urn celebrating love's triumph with a bas-relief of Cupid and Psyche inspired by the Metamorphoses of the Egyptian priest Apuleius.