A Dutch giltwood mirror

This giltwood pier glass or damspiegel may originally have been en suite with a console table and placed between a pair of windows. The frame is embellished with sharp C-scroll and foliate carving, representing the decorative vocabulary of the Dutch rococo. However, the base is decorated with a ribbon-tie, which points towards the advent of neo-classicism. The foliate trails, which wrap the moulded frame are closely related to the carving of a mirror in a cabinet at Huis ten Bosch near The Hague, which was executed by Agostino Carlini (ca. 1718-1790) in 1749-50. (R. Baarsen, 'High rococo in Holland: William IV and Agostino Carlini', Burlington Magazine (1998), p. 174, fig 16) A closely related overmantel mirror, decorated in a similar vein and with a virtually identical cresting, which was previously in the Notarishuis in Rotterdam on the Geldersche Kade, is illustrated in C. de Jonge W. Vogelsang, Hollndische Mbel und Raumkunst, The Hague, 1922, p. 70, fig 117.