CIRCA 1700

These girandoles with their blue and gold `mosaic’ borders are extraordinarily rare objects, individually and as a set of four, and appear to have few known counterparts. Dating from the around the end of the seventeenth century, the design derives from those of Daniel Marot (1663 – 1752), the Parisian architect, designer and engraver, forced to leave France after the Treaty of Nantes in 1685, and who sought the patronage of Prince William of Orange, King William III of England in 1688. Marot styled himself `Architect to William III, King of Great Britain’ and between 1689 and 1706 he spent periods in England working at Hampton Court, Petworth and Montagu House. He published several series of designs for interior decoration, furniture, metal work and textiles as well as for gardens, collected in Nouveaux Livre d’Orfeuverie, published in The Hague in 1703 (108 plates) and in Amsterdam in 1713 (126 plates). His influence in England was considerable since there was little generally available material in matters of design and good taste. Several of his engravings feature related mirrors or sconces, such as the design for a bedchamber from Nouveau Livre d’Apartements, 1703, and another from Nouveau Livre d’Orfeuverie, pl. 4, one of which a candle sconce with oval back is specifically inscribed Plaque en Mirroires Glace. (E. White, Pictorial Dictionary of British 18^th Century Furniture Design, Woodbridge, 1990, p. 33 and pp. 321 & 322).

The technique of gilding and painting on the reverse of glass is ancient but found favour in England at the end of the 17^th century, newspaper advertisements of the early 1690s make reference to what might be verre églomisé though Adam Bowett notes that it does not occur on any firmly dated English mirrors before 1700 and indeed the term itself appears to date from the mid-18^th century in connection with a French printseller and collector Jean Baptiste Glomy. A more likely reference was a 1704 bill of the cabinet-maker, japanner and looking-glass seller Philip Arbuthnot (d. 1727) of The Great Looking-Glass Shop, Strand, for a gift from Queen Anne to the Emperor of Morocco describing `two large sconces with double Branches finely gilded… Embellished with crimson and gold Mosaic Worke…’ (A. Bowett, English Furniture 1660 – 1714, Woodbridge, 2002, p. 300).

The Huguenot family of Jean Pelletier and his sons Thomas and René, is also closely associated with the medium. Jean was known as a carver and gilder and was first recorded in London in 1681/82, he was employed from 1689 – 1704 by Ralph, Earl and later 1^st Duke of Montagu and through Montagu he obtained the commission to supply giltwood furniture to William III for Hampton Court Palace. There is mention in the Pelletier accounts relating to Montagu (at Boughton, Northants, where coincidentally Arbuthnot also worked) in 1701 of `two pairs of glass sconces with their Branches at 35 shillings a pair’ and more explicitly in 1706 when Thomas and René Pelletier charged £12 for a `glass frame… Engraved with gold upon a blue ground’ for a chimneypiece at Ditton (T. Murdoch, `Jean, René and Thomas Pelletier, a Huguenot Family of Carvers and Gilders in England 1682 – 1726’. Part II, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 140, no. 1143 [Jun. 1998], pp. 362 – 374). These sconces are now lost, but two mirrors in the Victoria and Albert Museum might reasonably be attributed to the Pelletier workshop. Both feature engraved borders of gold strapwork, scrolls, acanthus and husks on a blue background but with carved giltwood crestings. The first (inv. No W.22 – 1949) was at Halnaby, Yorkshire, the second ( inv. no. W.27 – 1954) was likely made for a Scottish patron. Murdoch notes that the `mosaic work' might have have been executed René Pelletier whose training as an engraver would have equipped him for the task. Another similar mirror in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (acc. no. 64.101.1001) possibly by Pelletier, has a red-ground border and shares with the four girandoles the same leaf-carved edge.

The term girandole similarly originates from France where it was used to describe a carved wooden frame holding a mirror and with candle branches. Inevitably many must have succumbed to damage or fire , indeed Jonathan Swift wrote in his satirical Directions to Servants (1745) that `You may likewise stick the candle so loose that it will fall upon the glass of the sconce and break it into shatters’ so it is remarkable that a set of four should have survived.

The only other known closely related example is a pair with red verre églomisé borders and giltwood crestings and aprons that was acquired by Major John Courtauld, MC, MP (d. 1942) in 1925 (sold Strides, Chichester, 7 July 2003, lot 418) and more recently with Ronald Phillips Ltd. Of similar size to the girandoles offered here, it was suggested that they must have been intended for a smaller, private room. Another related pair with arched tops but flat bases and formerly fitted with candle branches is known in a British private collection, and while the origin and history of this set of four is not known they were undoubtedly commissioned by a person of taste and significant wealth.