Pair of firedogs. Culture: French. Dimensions: Height (each): 16 1/2 in. (41.9 cm). Date: ca. 1760-70.Firedogs with paired figures of a Chinese man and woman enjoyed a certain popularity in the mid-eighteenth century. The present pair, with each figure seated before a curved palm branch on a twisted S-shaped scroll supported by a truncated fluted column beside a finial, is the later of two models that incorporate these particular figures. On the earlier, fully rococo version, they sit before a curved balustrade atop a boldly asymmetrical C-shaped scroll. One example of the earlier model is signed by the goldsmith and bronze worker François-Thomas Germain (1726-1791), and others are thought to derive from it.1 Another example of the present model is in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Lyons. Daniel Alcouffe has proposed that its combination of rococo (the Chinese figures, scrolls, and palms) and neoclassical motifs (column and finial) indicates a date of about 1760-70.2 Eriksen has s