AN EMPIRE ORMOLU CENTREPIECE ATTRIBUTED TO PIERRE-PHILLIPE THOMIRE, CIRCA 1815 for Sale

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AN EMPIRE ORMOLU CENTREPIECE ATTRIBUTED TO PIERRE-PHILLIPE THOMIRE, CIRCA 1815 For Sale

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AN EMPIRE ORMOLU CENTREPIECE ATTRIBUTED TO PIERRE-PHILLIPE THOMIRE, CIRCA 1815:
$12500.00

An Empire Gilt Bronze Centerpiece Attributed To Pierre-Phillipe Thomire, Circa 1815.
H: 19"
D: 11"Please Note: The last photo is an example of signed piece by Thomire. The design and the workmanship is exactly the same as the piece we are offering.

Pierre-Philippe Thomire(1751–1843) a French sculptor, was the most prominentbronzier, or producer of ornamental patinated andgilt-bronzeobjects and furniture mounts of theFirst French Empire. His fashionableneoclassicalandEmpire stylefurnishing bronzes (bronzes d'ameublement) established the highest standard in refined finish in the craft that the French called that of thefondeur-ciseleur, "founder-finisher". In his pre-Revolutionary training, Thomire appeared first as aciseleur, in the division of duties that went into the production, for example, of a set of gilt-bronze wall-lights delivered for Marie-Antoinette's card-room, herSalon des JeuxatCompiègne: under the general supervision of Hauré, the wax and wooden model was carved by Martin, cast by Forestier, and chased by Thomire, as Pierre Verlet was able to show over fifty years ago.[1]

He had received his training in the workshop ofPierre Gouthière, the outstanding Parisianciseleur-doreurworking in the Louis XVI style, before establishing his own shop in 1776. He gradually assumed the leading position of his former master. In 1784 a pair of Sèvres vases with Raphaelesque grotesques in violet on a white ground, made in 1782 were mounted with gilt-bronze goats as handles, which Pierre Verlet recognized in a memorandum delivered by Thomire, who was responsible for modelling in wax, casting, matte gilding and mounting on the porcelain.[2]In 1783–84 he received his first notable commission, casting and finishing the gilt-bronze handles modelled byLouis-Simon Boizotfor a pair ofSèvres porcelainvases, today divided between theMusée du LouvreandPalazzo Pitti.

Under the Empire, Thomire purchased the fashionable premises of themarchand-mercierMartin-Éloi Lignereux, for whom he had provided furnishing bronzes[3]in rue Taitbout, Paris. When he exhibited in the 1806 Exposition Publique des Produits de l'Industrie, the first time abronzierwas permitted among the exhibiters, he gained a gold medal.[4]His most prestigious commission was the execution of the cradle for the King of Rome,[5]which was designed byPierre Paul Prud'honand in which Thomire collaborated with the Imperial silversmith Odiot; in a second cradle,[6]Thomire alone was responsible. At the height of his business, Niclausse estimated[7]Thomire employed six or seven hundred workers. A great number of the bronzes by Thomire in the Imperial residences had been commissioned, but further bronzes were supplied as collateral for a loan that was extended to Thomire in 1807 and which he was unable to repay, which consequently passed into the Imperial collection in 1811.[8]

Under the Restauration, Thomire Duterme et Cie.[9]retained the highest clientele, among them Monsieur, the King's brother,[10]theduc de Berry, and as furnishers to the Garde Meuble de la Couronne,[11]though elaborate measures were taken to rededicate Napoleonic allegories in bronze and ormolu with suitably Bourbon ones.[12]In one, Thomire cast and finished a martial allegory sculpted byLouis-Simon Boizot, who had provided draped caryatid models for furniture mounts that were touched up by Thomire, applied to the upper corners of a secretary desk byGuillaume Beneman, delivered for the King'scabinet intérieureat Compiègne, 1787.[13]

In a notable commission for CountNicolay Demidoffin 1819, Thomire produced finely-made figures of Fame with doubled trumpets to serve as handles for the massivemalachite-veneered vase now at the Metropolitan Museum.[14]Thomire retired from his firm in 1823.