IN THE MANNER OF WILLIAM AND JOHN LINNELL, CIRCA 1775

The mirror frames, evoking lyric poetry with wreaths of 'Venus' pearls and triumphal palms is festooned with laurels issuing from Bacchic ram-heads. In 1775, the Berkeley Square cabinet-makers William and John Linnell executed for the Earl of Haddington a related oval medallion mirror with antique-fluted frame in the Roman fashion popularised by the Rome-trained court architect Robert Adam (H. Hayward, William and John Linnell, New York, 1980, vol. II, p. 102, fig. 198). The Linnells supplied a pair of related mirrors to Henry Loftus, 1st Earl of Ely (d. 1783) for Loftus Hall, Co. Wexford for which the original drawing dated 1775 survives (H. Hayward, 'The Drawings of John Linnell in the Victoria and Albert Museum', Furniture History, 1969, p. 100, fig. 101). The mirrors were sold anonymously, Sotheby's, London, 4 July 1997, lot 73.