LAST QUARTER 18TH CENTURY

Details

A LOUIS XVI ORMOLU AND SILVER MIRROR
LAST QUARTER 18TH CENTURY
Of rectangular shape, the stepped moulded frame and inverted breakfront upper section fitted with studs to the angles and a stiff-leaf inner moulding, centred by a rosette-filled and beaded circular reserve flanked by a ribbon-tied berried foliate swag partially wrapping the sides of the frame behind the corners, the foxed replaced mirror plate framed by a red silk velvet edge, suspended by a foliate loop, the silver apparently unmarked
14¾ in. (37.5 cm.) x 9½ in. (24.5 cm.)

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Lot Essay

With its bold rosette cresting and heavy swags, this mirror is an example of goût grec, the early phase of the neo-classical style. Probably the first experimental item of this style is the celebrated bureau plat made circa 1754-56 for Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully to the designs of Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain (1714-1759), which is now at the Musée Condé at Chantilly. This style, fully demonstrated by this bureau but also by the bold rosette and borders of this mirror, is closely linked to Louis XIV architecture and ornaments. Within a few years, this fashion had gained wide popularity, and in 1763 Baron de Grimm was writing about Paris: tout se fait aujourd'hui à la grecque (S. Eriksen, Early neo-classicism in France, 1974, p.264). In the field of furniture, too, the style had spread outside the sphere of a rarefied group of avant-garde patrons and collectors.
A somewhat related silver mirror, signed by the orfèvre François-Thomas Germain is in the Museu de Arte Antiga in Lisbon while another example is in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg (illustrated in C. Perrin, François Thomas Germain. Orfèvre des rois, St. Rémy en l'Eau, 1993, p.217).

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