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Lot Essay
These serpentine mirror-bordered frames are conceived in the George III French picturesque manner. Their Roman husk-festooned, scrolled and acanthus-wrapped ribbons enclose a rustic urn-capped triumphal arch beneath a voluted and antique-fluted pediment. Their composition celebrates Venus, the nature-goddess, and is crowned by her triumphal shell-badge, while another sacred urn is festooned beneath by poetic laurels.
Their general form is evolved from a design, with flower-basket finial, executed in the late 1750s by William and John Linnell, cabinet-makers and upholsterers of Berkeley Square (H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, William and John Linell, London, 1980, vol.II, fig.186) while their architectural framework reflects the movement towards a more chaste classical elegance of the 1760s. Another closely related Linnell design in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (reproduced here) is illustrated in H. Hayward, 'The Drawings of John Linnell in the Victoria and Albert Museum', Furniture History, 1969, Fig.46. A pair of related pier glasses thought to have been designed by Linnell, reusing old mirrors and in part inspired by the same design, was supplied to Sir Molyneux Cope, 7th Baronet (d. 1765) for Bramshill, Hampshire (Hayward and Kirkham, ibid., vol.II, fig.188).
A mirror of similar form at Dingly Hall, Northamptonshire is illustrated in R. Edwards, ed., The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev.edn., 1954, vol.II, p.342, fig.82; while a virtually identical single example was sold as The Property of a Lady, Christie's London, 9 July 1998, lot 43.
Their general form is evolved from a design, with flower-basket finial, executed in the late 1750s by William and John Linnell, cabinet-makers and upholsterers of Berkeley Square (H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, William and John Linell, London, 1980, vol.II, fig.186) while their architectural framework reflects the movement towards a more chaste classical elegance of the 1760s. Another closely related Linnell design in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (reproduced here) is illustrated in H. Hayward, 'The Drawings of John Linnell in the Victoria and Albert Museum', Furniture History, 1969, Fig.46. A pair of related pier glasses thought to have been designed by Linnell, reusing old mirrors and in part inspired by the same design, was supplied to Sir Molyneux Cope, 7th Baronet (d. 1765) for Bramshill, Hampshire (Hayward and Kirkham, ibid., vol.II, fig.188).
A mirror of similar form at Dingly Hall, Northamptonshire is illustrated in R. Edwards, ed., The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev.edn., 1954, vol.II, p.342, fig.82; while a virtually identical single example was sold as The Property of a Lady, Christie's London, 9 July 1998, lot 43.