Candelabra (one of a pair), from a Service Made for Pauline Bonaparte and Prince Camillo Borghese
1794–1819
Marked by Martin-Guillaume Biennais (born France, 1764–1843) Probably after designs by Charles Percier (born France, 1764–1838) and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine (born France, 1762–1853) Paris
Paris
This object for the dining table is part of a vast service made for Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister Pauline on the occasion of her marriage to the Roman nobleman Camillo Borghese, Sixth Prince of Sulmona.
In the years after the French Revolution, architects and designers adopted the visual language of ancient Greece and Rome to express the new imperial order. Napoleon, hoping to promote Paris’s luxury trades, commissioned several silver dinner services as gifts to be sent abroad. The slender outlines and smooth surfaces of the objects in the Borghese service contrast with the rich decoration.
Gilded silver and gilded bronze