Getty Museum

Pair of decorative bronzes with the figures of L'Etude and La Philosophie

Date

about 1780–1785

Medium

Gilt and patinated bronze

Culture

French

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

The reading female represents an allegory of Study, while her male companion who writes on a tablet is Philosophy. These purely decorative objects copy the form of ancient oil lamps, but they were not actually functional. In 1780 the sculptor Louis-Simon Boizot sold models for these figures to the Sèvres porcelain manufactory, which produced them in unglazed white porcelain until 1786. The bronze chaser Pierre-Philippe Thomire mounted many pieces of the porcelain sold by the factory and therefore could have obtained Boizot's models for these bronze pieces through this close connection.

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.