FIRST HALF 18TH CENTURY

These magnificent Venetian mirrors, richly decorated with flowers and mother-of-pearl, typify the fascination for the alluring products of the Orient, made available through Venice's extensive trade contacts with the East. Furniture embellished in this precious technique became a speciality of Venice, which is demonstrated by the documented oeuvre of various artists. The celebrated architect and carver Domenico Rossetti (1650-1736), for instance, executed 'Una stanza nella casa di Angelo Nicolosi cancellier grande, con diversi lavori alla chinese, vernici, intagli e rimessi di madreperla: opera mirabile per la rarità dell'invenzione e della esecuzione' (Zannandreis, 1891, p. 349). Venetian workshops producing mirrors of this style, decorated them either in black or red lacca simulating oriental lacquer, but also in faux marble and real or simulated tortoiseshell, often with contrasting giltwood trailing motifs, which also feature on the present examples. This giltwood decoration is visible on a related mirror in the Museo Civico di Storia e Arte, in Trieste (illustrated in C. Alberici, Il Mobile Veneto, Milan, 1980, p. 159, ill. 218). Another mirror in the National Gallery in Prague, with closely related delicate japanned decoration in combination with mother-of-pearl inlay, but without the attractive cresting of our mirrors, is illustrated in H. Huth, Lacquer of the West, Chicago, 1971, figs. 103-4. A further closely related pair of mirrors was sold, Christie's London, 21 June 2000, lot 150 (£175,000), while, finally, a mirror which is virtually identical to the present lot, and most probably executed in the same Venetian workshop is illustrated in C. Santini, Mille Mobili Veneti, 2002, Vol. III, pp. 245-6, ill. 423.