Style Regence / Ref.10410

Rare pair of gilt bronze andirons with rearing horses, signed "Bouhon Frères"

This rare pair of gilt bronze andirons in Regence style were made and signed by Maison Bouhon Frères in the 19th century. It is a model known from the beginning of the 18th century, appearing in several variations oscillating from the Louis XIV style to the Louis XV style , which had a great impact among art lovers and princely houses. Indeed, the rearing horses of this pair of andirons hold a cartouche that could receive the most distinguished coat of arms.
This model is on the inventory after the death of the famous bronze-maker Jacques Caffieri, act of 1 December 1750. Several pairs of similar andirons are known, including one with the arms of the Stroganoffs, who belonged to Count Alexander Sergeyevich Stroganoff, and another with the arms of Bavaria, present at the castle of Nymphenburg already before 1769. A variant of these andirons, with a Louis XIV style pedestal, appeared in the ancient James de Rothschild collection.
It is thus an important model, whose success is historic. This is why at the Universal Exhibition of 1900 a pair from the Chappey collection was presented at the Retrospective Exhibition of French Art from the origins to 1800.

Our pair of andirons is a nineteenth century edition of the Stroganoff model. It has the particularity to have a base of Regence style , adorned with masks of Zephyr, foliage and palmettes, and volutes and counter-volutes.
It bears the stamp of Maison Bouhon Frères, a house renowned for its bronze fireplace accessories, in the second half of the 19th century, offering quality pieces, precise chiselling and rich details, just as it is the case here. In particular, it was rewarded for a pair of andirons at the 1900 Universal Exhibition.