.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This pier glass is conceived in the George II 'antique' manner promoted by the architect John Vardy (d.1765) with Venus-shell cartouches and Roman acanthus wreathing. Its ornament relates closely to that of the wall-brackets, derived from the Inigo Jones style, that Vardy designed for the Duke of Bolton in 1761 and which were executed for Hackwood. The design is now in the Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection, Vardy Drawings, no. G4 4. The brackets were removed from Hackwood before it was bought by Lord Camrose in 1935 but are visible in the 1913 Country Life photographs.
The origins of the husk-festooned frame can be traced to the frontispiece of Vardy's 1744 publication of Some designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. William Kent. Since origins of much of Vardy's Hackwood furnishings can be traced to proposals of the late 1750s for the St. James's Place house of John, 1st Earl Spencer, it is also of interest to note that the plumed foliage of this mirror's cresting relates to foliated palmettes among Vardy's 'Spencer' sketches (J. Freedman, Spencer House, London, 1993, p. 65, fig. iv).
The origins of the husk-festooned frame can be traced to the frontispiece of Vardy's 1744 publication of Some designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. William Kent. Since origins of much of Vardy's Hackwood furnishings can be traced to proposals of the late 1750s for the St. James's Place house of John, 1st Earl Spencer, it is also of interest to note that the plumed foliage of this mirror's cresting relates to foliated palmettes among Vardy's 'Spencer' sketches (J. Freedman, Spencer House, London, 1993, p. 65, fig. iv).