Gilt-bronze plaques

Finely modelled, chased and gilded, these gilt-bronze plaques, showing allegories of Love (F295) and Poetry (F296), are now works of art in their own right, but they were probably intended for mounting on furniture. Both plaques appear to derive from trophies Riesener made in marquetry, and it is likely that he worked with his long-term collaborator, Étienne Martincourt, to reproduce them in gilt bronze. After the death of both Riesener and Martincourt, the models for the plaques passed to other bronzeworkers and were used in the nineteenth century. Similar trophies to F295, of cut-out form, appear on the corner cupboards, also in the Wallace Collection (F275 and F276).