Pair of Carved Gilt-Wood Oval Looking-Glasses
English, 18th Century
In the Chippendale manner, the moulded oval frame bordered with leafage and surrounded by carved foliate branches and ‘C’ scrolls, surmounted by a foliate canopy. English, c. 1765.
Height 49" (1,24.5m).
Width 31" (79cm).
Thomas Chippendale designs for looking-glasses of this type, a plain oval surrounded by carved foliage and 'C' scrolls, can be found in his Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker's Director of 1762,(1) and a pair of looking-glasses related to this present pair, though surmounted by a bust of a moustachioed Chinaman beneath the foliate canopy, was supplied by Chippendale to Dumfries House in 1759.(2) Another pair of similar oval looking-glasses is in the collection of the National Trust at Basildon Park, Berkshire, in the Green Drawing Room, by James Robinson of Dublin, c. 1770-1773,(3) and another, previously with M. Harris & Sons, has a very closely related canopy.(4) The distinctive feature of a ball clasped in foliate ‘C’ scrolls, at the top of the oval plate, is reminiscent of the well-known design of arm terminal on chairs by Linnell, such as on two sets of six armchairs at Harewood House Yorkshire, and Inveraray Castle, Argyll, c. 1775.(5)
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Footnotes
1. Plate CLXXII, 'Four oval Frames'.
2. See Christopher Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, Vol. 2, fig. 271, p. 148; see also Christie’s London, catalogue for the sale which did not actually take place, Dumfries House, 12th July 2007, lot 20, est. £600,000-£1,000,000.
3. They were made by James Robinson for the Dublin house of Lady Betty Cobbe, and were presented to the National Trust by Lord and Lady Iliffe in 1992 (see the National Trust guidebook of the house by Charles Pugh and Tracey Avery, Basildon Park, 2004, p. 24, for a partial view of one).
4. See Geoffrey Wills, English Looking-glasses, 1965, fig. 109, p. 108.
5. See Helena Hayward and Pat Kirkham, William and John Linnell, 1980, Vol. 2, figs. 87 and 89, pp. 45 and 46. Linnell’s design for these chairs, in the Victoria & Albert Museum, is also reproduced, fig. 87, p. 45.
