33cm (13in) x 23cm (9in) x 14cm (5.5in)
Silvered brass. A pair of historicist wall lights inspired by the revivalist work of the influential French architect and designer Viollet-le-Duc - of whom the English architect William Burges admitted in his late life ‘We all cribbed on Viollet-le-Duc even though no one could read French’ - each with twin foliate branches and candleholders, the back plates cast with the arms of with King Henry IV of France - azure three fleurs-de-lys or - encircled by the collar of the Order of the the Holy Spirit.
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Henry IV of France (1553-1610), aka Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch of France from the House of Bourbon, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. He pragmatically balanced the interests of the Catholic and Protestant parties in France by the Edict of Nantes (1598), thereby ending the French Wars of Religion. He formed a strategic alliance with England through his marriage to the cousin of Elizabeth I. He was assassinated in 1610 by a Catholic, and was succeeded by his son Louis XIII.