Lot Details
Lot 406
George II Stripped Pine Pier Mirror
Circa 1740
The oval mirror plate within a pierced frame surmountd by the mask of Diana, a moon on her forehead, backed by a double shell and flanked by flowerheads, foliage and pomegranates, the ruffle carved sides with garrya and scrolls, the pierced apron similarly carved. Height 50 inches (1.27 m), width 31 inches (78.8 cm).
The influences of several designers are found in the present mirror. An oval mirror surmounted by a cresting with a mask in a scallop shell is illustrated by Daniel Marot, the Huguenot architect to William III, in his Oeuvres Du Sr D. Marot. . ., 1702. Certainly the designs of William Kent, architect to Lord Burlington, were part of the inspiration for the classical features of this mirror, such as the mask of Riana within a scallop shell. However, it was probably Gaetano Brunetti, whose rococo designs in Sixty Different Sorts of Ornaments invented by Gaetano Brunetti Italian painter. Very useful to painters, sculptors, stone carvers, wood carvers, silversmiths, etc., 1736, was an inspiration for the carver of this pier mirror. Traces of the exacting symmetry of Marot and Kent are still seen but are overlaid by a decidedly Italian baroque character blended with incipient rococo motifs: fruit, foliage, ruffled borders, flowerheads and rocailles.
English designers soon followed suit and began using Rococo elements, as can be seen in Batty Langley's The Builder's Jewell, or Youth's Instructor, 1741, Matthias Lock, Six Sconces, 1744, Matthias Lock & Henry Copland, A New Book of Ornaments, 1752, and, probably most famously, Thomas Chippendale, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754.
C
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