CIRCA 1760

This pair of ornate giltwood pier mirrors in the ‘picturesque’ or 'French' taste is after designs by the cabinet-making father and son partnership of William (d. 1763) and John Linnell (d. 1796) of Berkeley Square, London. As one of the most prominent firms of cabinet-makers of the second half of the 18th century, the Linnells supplied furniture and decorations for important country houses including Kedleston Hall, Badminton House, Osterley Park, Syon Park, Alnwick Castle, Shardeloes, Bowood House, Lansdowne House and Inveraray Castle.

The design of the present mirrors with their distinctive and beautifully-carved cresting of a woven basket, overflowing with foliate and fruit garlands is reflected in drawings of circa 1755-60 for pier glasses by the Linnell firm, held in the Victoria & Albert Museum (H. Hayward, P. Kirkham, William and John Linnell: Eighteenth Century London Furniture Makers, London, 1980, vol. II, p. 96, fig. 186; H. Hayward, ‘The Drawings of John Linnell in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Furniture History, vol. 5, 1969, fig. 47 and p. 93). Another whimsical design for a pier mirror with console table of about 1760, also held by the V, features similar profoundly scrolling ‘shoulders’, almost certainly ornamentation derived from the oeuvre of Matthias Lock as published in his Six Sconces (1744) (P. Ward-Jackson, English Furniture Designs of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1958, fig. 199). Other pairs of Rococo mirrors of equally impressive dimensions are at Stourhead, Wiltshire, perhaps made for Sir Richard Hoare for Barn Elms in 1753, and at Hagley Park, Worcestershire, circa 1755 (Hayward, Kirkham, op. cit., p. 100, fig. 191; R. Edwards, The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1964, p. 369, fig. 61).