Rare Aesthetic Movement Wall-Light Attributed to G. Viardot, France, Circa 1880

This wall-light is to be linked to a mirror by Gabriel Viardot, now exhibited at the Decorative Arts Museum in Paris (Inv. 2002.57.1), showing two dragons wrappred around a crescent shaped mirror.

Gabriel Viardot career began as a wood carver and he produced small furniture, sculpturally carved with naturalistic motifs and animals. In the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris, his finely sculpted objects were well received. However, with the increasing importation of similarly produced Swiss and German articles, he found less opportunity for these and decided to inovate. G. Viardot succeeded to his father’s business in 1861 installed rue Rambuteau in Paris. Around 1870 he turned to the idea of producing ‘Meubles genre Chinois et Japonais’. The taste in Europe for exotic furniture