LATE 19TH CENTURY, AFTER A DESIGN BY THOMAS CHIPPENDALE

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, 1762, Third edition, pl. CLXXVIII, 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.