A PAIR OF GEORGE III GILTWOOD TWO-LIGHT GIRANDOLES

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Details

A PAIR OF GEORGE III GILTWOOD TWO-LIGHT GIRANDOLES
Each with a shaped rectangular plate within stylised pilaster borders, the pierced cresting with confronting stylised acanthus sprays above a pierced trefoil and acanthus, the sides with upspringing trees and rushes emanating from rocky naturalistic plinths with scrolling branches terminating in later bronzed metal drip-pans and nozzles in the form of leaves, the base with stylised C-scrolls, acanthus and further rockwork, regilt, later backboards, the reverse of one inscribed in ink 'Polson Paisley' in an 18th or 19th century hand
44 x 28 in. (112 x 72 cm.) (2)

Provenance

Bought from Norman Adams, 1 April 1965.

Literature

C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington, 18th Century English Furniture, The Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, rev. ed., 1985, p. 426 ('... ingenious in conception and execution and very light in its effect.').

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

These candle-branched mirrors are conceived in the French picturesque manner popularised by 'Girandole' patterns issued in Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754, pl. CXI, and the carver Thomas Johnson's Twelve Girandoles, 1755. They represent the merging of various styles in the George II modern fashion with their whimsical lack of classical proportions, after the Chinese manner, and their rusticated 'gothic' pilasters fused with vegetation emblematic of the Elements.
Johnson also issued a pattern for a related acanthus-pedimented girandole in his Collection of Designs, 1758, pl. 51. This in turn relates to girandoles introduced at this period to Corsham Court, Wiltshire (O. Brackett, Thomas Chippendale, London, 1925, pl. XLII).

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