A GEORGE IV ORMOLU-MOUNTED AND EBONISED OVERMANTEL MIRROR

BY GILLOWS

Details

A GEORGE IV ORMOLU-MOUNTED AND EBONISED OVERMANTEL MIRROR
By Gillows
The rectangular plate within a lappeted slip and flanked to the top and sides by bobbin-turned columns with central foliate panels to the base, the top of the back indistinctly inscribed in pencil
57 in. x 53 in. (146 cm. x 134.5 cm.)

Provenance

Supplied to Peter Langford-Brooke, Esq. (d. 1840), for Mere Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire by Gillows of Lancaster.
Thence by descent at Mere to Mrs. Helen Langford-Brooke [+], sold Christie's house sale, 23 May 1994, lot 85.

Lot Essay

This mirror formed part of a suite of bedroom furniture supplied to Peter Langford-Brooke for Mere Hall, Cheshire, by Gillows of Lancaster. It was recorded in Mrs. Julia Langford-Brooke's sitting-room, in her 1840 Inventory, the room being furnished en suite with the dressing-room. The suite of George IV ebonised furniture was fashionable on three counts; firstly through its column-enrichments and colouring associated with Pompeian and Etruscan antiquity, secondly through elements of its form and ormolu embellishments being associated with the bniste-work of the Louis XVI period, as exemplified by Guillaume Beneman, and finally through its colouring and rich turning being considered as 'Old English' by antiquarians and Wardour Street dealers, who prized old ebony-turned Indian furniture as being 'Elizabethan'.

More from Fine English Furniture

View All