CIRCA 1690

The medallion-cartouche frame is wreathed by flowers and pinecones and displays the Royal Crown attended by orb-and-sceptre bearing genii or cupids. It is conceived in the Louis Quatorze 'antique' manner and the naturalism of its carving relates to the work of the late 17th-century carver Grinling Gibbons. A related late 17th-century mirror-frame, bearing a cupid-supported crown, was formerly at Bramshill, Hampshire (P. Macquoid & R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1924, vol. II, fig. 10). Related carved pinecones were executed for Badminton House, Gloucestershire in the early 1680s (D. Esterly, Grinling Gibbons and the Art of Carving, London, 1998, p. 92).

This mirror-sconce, now lacking its candlebranch, formed part of the collection of 17th-century mirrors and sconces assembled by Colonel Norman Colville M.C. (1893-1974), many of which were illustrated in Macquoid & Edwards, op. cit., figs. 3, 6, 15 & 17).