FONDERIE CALLA, PARIS - Lot 657

FONDERIE CALLA, PARIS NEOGOTHIC BENCH Cast-iron, the back decorated with Neo-Gothic arcatures and openwork quatrefoils, the sinuous armrests, the seat decorated with hexagonal recesses framed by crenellated frieze. It stands on four straight, sloping legs joined by an H-shaped brace. The clamping bolts are shaped like hexagonal rosettes. Marked "Calla à Paris breveté" on the back. c. 1840 - 1850. Height. 89 cm; Width. 144 cm; Depth. 50 cm. Oxidation, three hexagonal bolts missing, reinforcements on base and back. Founded in Paris in 1788, the Calla foundries, originally located in Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis, later moved to Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière. When the factory was taken over in 1835 by Christophe-François Calla, a friend of architect Jacques Hittorf, the company turned its attention to ornamental cast iron, participating in major Parisian projects such as the Pantheon, the Bibliothèque-Sainte-Geneviève and the churches of the Madeleine, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. Calla also cast the Louvois fountain and the four fountains in the carré Marigny on the Champs-Elysées promenades. Hittorf had even originally entrusted them with the fountains, rostral columns and candelabras on the Place de la Concorde.