• Museum's website, accessed 22 March 2012 and August 3, 2018
• 1997 Fusco
  Peter Fusco, Summary Catalogue of European Sculpture in The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997, p. 7, repr.

Attributed to Pierre-Philippe Thomire, after models by Louis-Simon Boizot.

Museum's website, accessed August 3, 2018:
The reading female represents an allegory of Study, while her male companion who writes on a tablet is Philosophy. These purely decorative objects copy the form of ancient oil lamps, but they were not actually functional.
In 1780 the sculptor Louis-Simon Boizot sold models for these figures to the Sèvres porcelain manufactory, which produced them in unglazed white porcelain until 1786. The bronze chaser Pierre-Philippe Thomire mounted many pieces of the porcelain sold by the factory and therefore could have obtained Boizot's models for these bronze pieces through this close connection.