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Lot Essay
These temple-pedimented pier-glasses are designed in the George II 'Roman' fashion promoted by the Rome-trained artist William Kent (d.1748) and evoke Peace and Plenty and antiquity's 'Feast of Bacchus'. Their flowered frames display palm-wreathed scallop-shells recalling Venus as triumphal nature deity. Basket-bearing and veil-draped nymphs, the companions of the Arcadian satyrs, provide their caryatic, hermed and truss-scrolled pilasters, which are imbricated with 'Venus-dolphin' scales. Kent introduced related pilasters in his 1720s design for a chimneypiece at Houghton Hall, Norfolk (published in William Kent, The Designs of Inigo Jones with Some additional Designs [by Lord Burlington and Himself], 1727, pl.64). Another of Kent's designs for a pedimented chimneypiece at Houghton featured a 'continued' overmantel frame that was flanked by basket-bearing nymphs (Isaac Ware, Designs of Inigo Jones and others, 1731,vol. 1, pl, 37).
These nymphs, in turn, relate to veil-draped vestals raised on elongated truss-scrolled pilasters, that featured in a mirror pattern issued in the architect Daniel Marot's, Nouveaux Livre d'Orfevrérie, 1703 (pl. 4). Yet another Kent design, published by Ware, was for a pedimented overmantel frame, whose frieze displayed a shell between Jonesian trussed brackets (Ware, op.cit., pl. 34).
The present frames are wreathed in flowers, tied in a Grecian-fretted ribbon-guilloche and banded by 'Pan' reed gadroons, and this ornament can be found in one of Kent's vase patterns illustrated in John Vardy's, Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. William Kent, 1744, pl.25.
The flowered key-fret and gadrooned inner border featured on the celebrated pair of pier glasses supplied by John Boson, with tables en suite for the Summer Parlour at Chiswick House in 1735. Almost certainly executed after designs by Kent for the Countess of Burlington's own use, they were invoiced as 'two rich Glas frames with folidge and other ornaments' at a cost of £15. These are discussed in John Cornforth, Early Georgian Interiors, London, 2004, pp.184-5. Interestingly, Boson also supplied 'two stands with Boy heads'; the sculptural handling of the figural terms on the Rudding Park mirrors is reminiscent of Boson's carving.
This type of architectural pier mirror was characteristic of Kent's interior schemes; further related examples were supplied under his direction to the Earl of Leicester for Holkham Hall, Norfolk, possibly by Benjamin Goodison, as well as by Kent's pupil John Vardy to Charles Powlett, 5th Duke of Bolton for Hackwood Park Hampshire. Probably carved by his brother Thomas Vardy, the Hackwood mirrors were sold amonymously, Christies, London, 8 July 1999, lot 52.
RUDDING PARK
Rudding Park was built for The Hon. William Gordon and works began in 1807, possibly by Lewis Wyatt. In 1824 it was purchased unfinished by Sir Joseph Radcliffe and completed in 1825 by R. D. Chantrell. These mirrors were no doubt acquired shortly after the Second World War by Captain Sir Everard Radcliffe, Bt., M.C. - a Country House sale enthusiast - following his inheritance of Rudding Park, Yorkshire in 1946.
An unsigned George II mirror design, with related caryatic and scale-imbricated pilasters, is in the Victoria & Albert Museum (P. Ward-Jackson, Victoria & Albert Museum: English Furniture Designs, London, 1958, fig 26).
THE GILDING
There is one layer of gilding on both mirrors. Some areas of gilding show remains of a yellow gesso layer between the wood and present layer of white gesso, left from an earlier decorative scheme.
These nymphs, in turn, relate to veil-draped vestals raised on elongated truss-scrolled pilasters, that featured in a mirror pattern issued in the architect Daniel Marot's, Nouveaux Livre d'Orfevrérie, 1703 (pl. 4). Yet another Kent design, published by Ware, was for a pedimented overmantel frame, whose frieze displayed a shell between Jonesian trussed brackets (Ware, op.cit., pl. 34).
The present frames are wreathed in flowers, tied in a Grecian-fretted ribbon-guilloche and banded by 'Pan' reed gadroons, and this ornament can be found in one of Kent's vase patterns illustrated in John Vardy's, Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. William Kent, 1744, pl.25.
The flowered key-fret and gadrooned inner border featured on the celebrated pair of pier glasses supplied by John Boson, with tables en suite for the Summer Parlour at Chiswick House in 1735. Almost certainly executed after designs by Kent for the Countess of Burlington's own use, they were invoiced as 'two rich Glas frames with folidge and other ornaments' at a cost of £15. These are discussed in John Cornforth, Early Georgian Interiors, London, 2004, pp.184-5. Interestingly, Boson also supplied 'two stands with Boy heads'; the sculptural handling of the figural terms on the Rudding Park mirrors is reminiscent of Boson's carving.
This type of architectural pier mirror was characteristic of Kent's interior schemes; further related examples were supplied under his direction to the Earl of Leicester for Holkham Hall, Norfolk, possibly by Benjamin Goodison, as well as by Kent's pupil John Vardy to Charles Powlett, 5th Duke of Bolton for Hackwood Park Hampshire. Probably carved by his brother Thomas Vardy, the Hackwood mirrors were sold amonymously, Christies, London, 8 July 1999, lot 52.
RUDDING PARK
Rudding Park was built for The Hon. William Gordon and works began in 1807, possibly by Lewis Wyatt. In 1824 it was purchased unfinished by Sir Joseph Radcliffe and completed in 1825 by R. D. Chantrell. These mirrors were no doubt acquired shortly after the Second World War by Captain Sir Everard Radcliffe, Bt., M.C. - a Country House sale enthusiast - following his inheritance of Rudding Park, Yorkshire in 1946.
An unsigned George II mirror design, with related caryatic and scale-imbricated pilasters, is in the Victoria & Albert Museum (P. Ward-Jackson, Victoria & Albert Museum: English Furniture Designs, London, 1958, fig 26).
THE GILDING
There is one layer of gilding on both mirrors. Some areas of gilding show remains of a yellow gesso layer between the wood and present layer of white gesso, left from an earlier decorative scheme.