Lot Essay
PROVENANCE:
Acquired by Henry Isaac Butterfield, Cliffe Castle, Yorkshire
By descent to his son, Sir Frederick Butterfield
By descent to his daughter, Marie Louise, Countess Manvers, sold Messrs. Hollis & Webb, house sale, Cliffe Castle, 5 - 8 June 1950, lot 466, (80 Gns. to Illingworth)
This mirror is a simplified version of a 17th century French brass-bordered mirror of rectangular cut-cornered form, at the Convent of Guadeloupe, illustrated S. Roche, Miroirs, 1956, pls. 254-5. The latter is embossed with arabesque satyr-masks emerging from acanthus-scrolled brackets, and its mirrored borders are hung with crystal flowers and shells. According to Sir Frederick Butterfield's memoires, My West Riding Experiences, his father Henry Isaac Butterfield (d.1910), after transforming Cliffe Hall, his Yorkshire house, into Cliffe Castle during the 1870's with the assistance of the Parisian firm of M. Gremand, '..proceeded to fill the new building with every costly detail his Parisian experiences could suggest - from a malachite mantelpiece, once the proud possession of Prince Demidoff of San Donato fame, to an ornate crystal mirror, said to have been given to Ninon de L'Enclose by Louis XIV. This mirror, together with its companion (lot 467), hung in the dining room, and appeared on the third day of the sale.
Acquired by Henry Isaac Butterfield, Cliffe Castle, Yorkshire
By descent to his son, Sir Frederick Butterfield
By descent to his daughter, Marie Louise, Countess Manvers, sold Messrs. Hollis & Webb, house sale, Cliffe Castle, 5 - 8 June 1950, lot 466, (80 Gns. to Illingworth)
This mirror is a simplified version of a 17th century French brass-bordered mirror of rectangular cut-cornered form, at the Convent of Guadeloupe, illustrated S. Roche, Miroirs, 1956, pls. 254-5. The latter is embossed with arabesque satyr-masks emerging from acanthus-scrolled brackets, and its mirrored borders are hung with crystal flowers and shells. According to Sir Frederick Butterfield's memoires, My West Riding Experiences, his father Henry Isaac Butterfield (d.1910), after transforming Cliffe Hall, his Yorkshire house, into Cliffe Castle during the 1870's with the assistance of the Parisian firm of M. Gremand, '..proceeded to fill the new building with every costly detail his Parisian experiences could suggest - from a malachite mantelpiece, once the proud possession of Prince Demidoff of San Donato fame, to an ornate crystal mirror, said to have been given to Ninon de L'Enclose by Louis XIV. This mirror, together with its companion (lot 467), hung in the dining room, and appeared on the third day of the sale.