This painting depicts the silversmith Thomas Germain (1673–1748), appointed sculpteur-orfèvre du roi in 1723, and his wife, Anne-Denise Gauchelet, inside his workshop at the Louvre. This type of figuration, referred to as the ‘official artist portrait’, retains the sense of pageantry associated with French taste at the time.

Thomas Germain points proudly to a candelabra, the shaft of which bears figures of satyrs. This model would give rise to a series of identical pieces delivered in Lisbon to the court of King Joseph I of Portugal in 1757, in a shipment sent by his son François-Thomas Germain (1726–1791). On the shelf, a terracotta cherub resembles the finishings on the terrines supplied by François-Thomas to the courts of Portugal and Russia.

On the opposite side, a base featuring cherubs around a trunk, in wax, may be a variant of the aforementioned candelabra. Lastly, a plaster sphinx bears witness to the silversmith’s interest in Egyptology, very much in vogue at the time.