Pair of French Directoire Style Wall Sconces, Gilt Bronze and Patinated Iron — France, circa 1960

The Directoire style emerged in the brief, turbulent years between the fall of the monarchy and the rise of Napoleon — a moment when French design shed the ornamental excess of Louis XVI and reached instead for something leaner, more Roman, more serious. The vocabulary it settled on was spare and precise: acanthus leaves flattened into tulip forms, clean geometric backplates, arms that curved without flourishing. It became, in the hands of the best Parisian bronziers, one of the most quietly authoritative styles French decorative arts ever produced — and one that has never looked out of place in a modern interior.

This pair is French, circa 1960, made in the Directoire tradition with a combination that gives them their particular character: gilt bronze arms and fittings set against a patinated iron backplate in a deep blue-grey, the contrast between warm gold and cool iron doing the work that ornament does in heavier styles. Each sconce carries two gently curved arms rising from a rectangular backplate, each arm ending in a tulip-form socket carved with stylised acanthus leaves — note how the leaf modelling on the socket column tapers upward to a point, the same movement repeated in the fleur-de-lis finial at the top of the backplate, a designer's discipline that ties the whole piece together vertically. The gilt bronze is bright and even across both sconces.

Whoever lit their rooms with these before you kept them in good order. Both sconces are sound and well matched; the blue-grey iron backplates are consistent across the pair. They arrive fully rewired and ready to hang — a pair that sits as naturally in a modern apartment as in a period interior.

They arrive professionally packed and fully insured. All duties and import charges are our responsibility — you pay nothing beyond the listed price. Returns are accepted within 30 days.

DETAILS:
Size: each — Height 25.5 cm (10 in) · Width 23 cm (9.1 in)
Material: gilt bronze arms and fittings; patinated iron backplate
Style/Period: Directoire style, French, circa 1960
Sockets: two per sconce, four total — fully rewired and ready to use.
Lampshades: not included
Shipping: professionally packed, fully insured, worldwide — all import duties paid by us, nothing to settle on delivery
Condition: very good; gilt bronze bright and even; patinated iron backplates consistent across the pair
Returns: accepted within 30 days

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