Pierre-Philippe Thomire

Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751 — 1843) a French sculptor, was the most prominent "bronzier", or producer of ornamental patinated and gilt-bronze objects and furniture mounts of the First French Empire. His fashionable neoclassical furnishing bronzes ("bronzes d'ameublement") established the highest standard in refined finish in the craft that the French called that of the "fondeur-ciseleur", "founder-finisher". In his pre-Revolutionary training, Thomire appeared first as a "ciseleur", in the division of duties that went into the production, for example, of a set of gilt-bronze wall-lights delivered for Marie-Antoinette's card-room, her "Salon des Jeux" at Compiègne: under the general supervision of Hauré, the wax and wooden model was carved by Martin, cast by Forestier, and chased by Thomire, as Pierre Verlet was able to show over fifty years ago. [Pierre Verlet, "The Wallace Collection and the Study of French Eighteenth-Century Bronzes d'ameublement" "The Burlington Magazine" 92 No. 567 (June 1950, pp. 154-15) p. 156. The wall-lights are identifiable in the Wallace Collection, London, by their stamped royal inventory numbers.]

He had received his training in the workshop of Pierre Gouthière, the outstanding Parisian "ciseleur-doreur" working in the Louis XVI style, before establishing his own shop in 1776. He gradually assumed the leading position of his former master. In 1784 a pair of Sèvres vases with Raphaelesque grotesques in violet on a white ground, made in 1782 were mounted with gilt-bronze goats as handles, which Pierre Verlet recognized in a memorandum delivered by Thomire, who was responsible for modelling in wax, casting, matte gilding and mounting on the porcelain. ["20 septembre 1784. Garniture de vases à bouc, fonte, modèle en cire, monture, dorure au mat" noted in Pierre Verlet, "Orders for Sèvres from the French Court' "The Burlington Magazine" 96 No. 616 (July 1954, pp. 202-206) p. 206.] In 1783-84 he received his first notable commission, casting and finishing the gilt-bronze handles modelled by Boizot for a pair of Sèvres porcelain vases, today divided between the Musée du Louvre and Palazzo Pitti.

Under the Empire, Thomire purchased the fashionable premises of the "marchand-mercier" Martin-Éloi Lignereux, for whom he had provided furnishing bronzes [Lignereux had previously been the partner of Dominique Daguerre, who had settled in London.] in rue Taitbout, Paris. When he exhibited in the 1806 Exposition Publique des Produits de l'Industrie, the first time a "bronzier" was permitted among the exhibiters, he gained a gold medal. [ David Harris Cohen, "The History of the Maréchal de Villars Group" "Metropolitan Museum Journal" 14 (1979, pp. 185-189), p. 185.] His most prestigious commission was the execution of the cradle for the King of Rome, [Now in Vienna.] which was designed by Pierre Paul Prud'hon and in which Thomire collaborated with the Imperial silversmith Odiot; in a second cradle, [Now at the Louvre.] Thomire alone was responsible. At the height of his business, Niclausse estimated [Niclausse 1947:47.] Thomire employed six or seven hundred workers. A great number of the bronzes by Thomire in the Imperial residences had been commissioned, but further bronzes were supplied as collateral for a loan that was extended to Thomire in 1807 and which he was unable to repay, which consequently passed into the Imperial collection in 1811. [Traced in detail in Cohen 1979.]

Under the Restauration, Thomire Duterme and Cie. [Until 1819, thenceforth simply Thomire et cie.] retained the highest clientele, Monsieur, the King's brother [The future Charles X of France.] , the duc de Berry, and as furnishers to the Garde Meuble de la Couronne, [According to a document of 25 February 1818, noted by Cohen 1979:188.] though elaborate measures were taken to rededicate Napoleonic allegories in bronze and ormolu with suitably Bourbon ones. [See James David Draper, "The Fortunes of Two Napoleonic Sculptural Projects" "Metropolitan Museum Journal" 14 (1979), pp. 173-184.] In one, Thomire cast and finished a martial allegory sculpted by Louis-Simon Boizot, who had provided draped caryatid models for furniture mounts that were touched up by Thomire, applied to the upper corners of a secretary desk by Guillaume Beneman, delivered for the King's "cabinet intérieure" at Compiègne, 1787 [Now in the Wrightsman collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.]

In a notable commission for Count Nicolai Demidoff in 1819, Thomire produced finely-made figures of Fame with doubled trumpets to serve as handles for the massive malachite-veneered vase now at the Metropoolitan Museum. [Preston Remington, "The Story of a Malachite Vase"The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin" New Series, 3.6 (February 1945), pp. 142-145.] Thomire retired from his firm in 1823.

Notes

Further reading

*Niclausse, J. "Thomire, fondeur-ciseleur (1751-1843)" (Paris) 1947.