Torchère
Category
Furniture
Date
c. 1750 - c. 1850
Materials
Pine, gesso, gilding
Measurements
1730 x 610 x 510 mm
Place of origin
Italy, Northern
Order this imageCollection
Hinton Ampner, Hampshire
NT 1529842.1
Summary
One of a pair of giltwood torchères, Northern Italian, c. 1750-1850. One of a pair of torchères in the baroque manner, carved of softwood, probably pine, in the form of a classical figural group, with red bole (clay ground) and burnished water gilding. The torchère modelled with a rockwork base upon which an Atlas-type figure crouches, semi-draped, with contra-posing limbs and torso, looking straight ahead. The Atlas figure bears on his shoulders a male youth, nude, who holds aloft an oval basin. Foliage twines around the central axis, between the Atlas and the legs of the youth. The youth supports the basin with one hand, the other hand placed between the crown of the head and the base of the bowl to cushion the load. The basin is enriched with a band of carved scrolling foliage. The torchères are in the style of baroque Northern Italian, particularly Genoese, reggiotorcieri.
Provenance
Tortworth Court, Gloucestershire.