Gilt bronze and lacquered planter or small table, tolla tub, France, late 19th century, "Retour d'Egypte" style

Gilt bronze and lacquered planter or small table, tolla tub, France, late 19th century, «Retour d'Egypte» style Dimensions: cm L 56 x maximum diameter 51 x H 90. H to the tub's top 81 cm Price: confidential negotiation Item accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. This refined planter was made in France towards the end of the 19th century in the «Retour d'Egypte» style. It consists of a tripod structure in finely chiseled gilt and lacquered bronze in various tones. Each leg originates with volute decorations and phytomorphic elements with gilded details, supported by a sphinx with gilded hairstyle, tail and wings. This sits on a curved and lively element decorated with gilded foliage and a male head with a long beard in classical taste. The legs terminate in feral feet and rest on a tripartite base that connects them. Halfway up each leg, a bronze connection with curls and volutes departs and converges towards the others at the center, where a vertical element contributes to the elegance and lightness of the whole. The planter's tub is made of lacquered tolla, with gilded edges and reserves. The raised part of the tub has some holes that allow breathability of the space. This tripod is inspired, with variations, by a famous model by the brothers Luigi and Antonio Manfredini, bronziers active in Milan at the beginning of the 19th century, financed by the Viceroy of Italy Eugenio de Beauharnais, adoptive son of Napoleon Bonaparte, for the opening of the Royal Manufacture of Eugenia. The Retour d'Egypte style had a wide echo in France and Europe and originated from the military campaign of General Bonaparte in the land of Egypt in 1799. The fashion of Egyptian artifacts had already found a previous interpreter in Italy in the engraver Giovan Battista Piranesi, but the widespread diffusion that Egyptian ornament also had in furniture finds its main springboard with the publication in 1802 of the volume by Dominique Vivant Denon, the Egyptologist who followed the future emperor in the land of the pharaohs, diligently copying every archaeological vestige that was possible for them to fix on paper. The furnishings were adorned with ornaments of sphinxes, palmettes, caryatids, Egyptian profiles, not infrequently in symbiosis with Greek-Roman elements. Very refined, elegant and with a strong decorative character, this tripod is easily inserted into any furnishing context and in any environment. It can in fact be conceived in the center or near a corner, in an entrance or in a corridor, but also in a living room, in a study or in a bedroom. It could also be placed in a bathroom. This planter could also be transformed into a gueridon table by placing a crystal or marble top on the tub or replacing it.