OF GEORGE II STYLE, ORIGINALLY A PICTURE FRAME

The frame with its scrolled pediment, scrolled trusses and flowered fibbon-fret relates to the Palladian or Roman fashion illustrated in E. Hoppus, The Gentleman and Builder's Repository, 1737, while its scalloped enrichments relate to the picturesque fashion of the 1740s. The satyr-mask wears a jewelled feather head-dress in the fashion associated with Frederick, Prince of Wales, while the acanthus-scrolled trusses are enriched with triumphal laurels and Scottish thistles. In 1759 William Mathie incorporated thistles on mirrors provided for Dumfries House alluding to the Order of the Thistle granted to the Earl of Bute (see F. Bamford, A Dictionary of Edinburgh Furniture Makers, 1660-1840, Leeds, 1983, pls. 14 and 16).