Lot Essay
The Drawing Room window-pier mirrors are designed in the George II 'Modern' fashion popularised by the St. Martins Lane cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers Director, 1754; and evoke Ovids Metamorphoses (Loves of the Gods) and his history of Apollo as light-deity controller of the Elements as expressed by the Latin 'collegit ut spargat'. The golden Roman 'light-reflecting' medallions are enwreathed by gadrooned, acanthus-wrapped, and wave-scrolled reeds, that are sacred to the Arcadian deity Pan; while their pagoda-swept pediments provide perches for exotic birds accompanying obelisk-finialed urns, emblematic of the virtue of Pietas and recalling the 'Columbarium' vase-chambers of antiquity. In 1759 Chippendale designed urn-capped mirrors of this style for the Saloon of Dumfries, Scotland, where they were described in the late 18th century as '2 oval Looking Glasses' (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, fig. 271).