Pair of Art Deco Bronze Sconces with Three Arms, Openwork Backplate with a Scroll Motif, Circa 1930

Each sconce features a bronze backplate with cut corners, openworked with vertical fluting and animated in the lower part by a powerful spiral scroll motif, typical of the Art Deco repertoire. Three scrolled arms — two lateral and one central, plunging — end in candle cups with gadrooned dishes receiving faux candles. The bronze shows a gilt patina nuanced by time.

This geometrised vocabulary — stylised volutes, fluting, play of solids and voids — is characteristic of French art ironwork and bronzework of the 1930s, in the spirit of the great ateliers of the period that knew how to marry Art Deco rigour with the tradition of lighting bronze.

Condition report: Good general condition. Bronze with a nuanced patina of use, natural oxidation conferring fine character; faux candles possibly to be refreshed. Electricity checked by an electrician. A pair of character to frame a fireplace or a period mirror.