Two Torchères
Juan Dolivar
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Etching and engraving with designs for two torchères, created by Juan Dolivar after designs by Jean I Berain. Entrusted with drawings for costumes, stage sets, and royal ceremonies at the 'Academie Royale de la Musique' since 1680, Berain's ingenious creations took acanthus and laurel leaves, palmettes and grotesques, mixing them with dancers, acrobats, monkeys and satyrs, to create his own, imaginative, theatrical world. His designs were multiplied and disseminated by means of engravings, his design motifs and manner objects becoming highly influential in the closing years of the seventeenth century. The first torchère, on the left, contains a base with an armed Minerva, also wearing a helmet, sitting in the central panel, dressed with draping garments, her feet undressed, and a thin cornucopia falling from her hand, and holding a small bundle of fruits and leaves that stands next to her foot, with two side panels on her sides, framed with S-curves, each holding a small ornamental vase, and with smaller panels with classical scenes standing to her sides. Above her, and flanking the upper part of the base is a semi-circle with a rosette, framed by Greek scrolls and tassels. Upon it stands a thin ornamental vase, flanked to the sides by two winged female sphinges, holding the pedestal, which is made up of a small box with another classical scene, upon which stands a rectangular column, with a roundel of laurel leaves and a side-portrait of a classical male figure, a rectangular frame with a classical scene under it, and flanked to the sides by two columns with grotesques and female busts. Upon this column stands another ornamental vase, decorated with thin garlands of leaves, interlacing strapwork, and tassels, flanked above by a sphere of acanthus leaves, which opens up to create a round sconce on the upper part of the torchère. The second design consists of a base with two legs made up of scrolling strapwork, decorated with acanthus leaves and interlacing snake bodies, flanked above by two Tritons, which hold the pedestal. Between them is a grotesque with a thin garland of flowers and leaves as hair, standing on a bundle of acanthus leaves, flanked below by a shell motif. The head of the grotesque is flanked above by a group of C-curves, flanked to the sides by a horizontal garland of laurel leaves, which holds the shaft of the torchère, standing on scrolling acathus leaves and flanked by thin garlands of leaves, decorated with neoclassical scenes, and on which stands a male figure, possibly Apollo, wearing a helmet and draping garments. The shaft is flanked above by an ornamental vase with grotesques and thin garlands with leaves, upon which stands the sconce of the torchère.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.