A PAIR OF GEORGE III GILTWOOD MIRRORS

These Drawing Room window-pier mirrors are designed in the George II 'Modern' fashion popularised by the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers Director, 1754. In 1759 Chippendale supplied related mirrors with Chinoiserie busts within the C-scroll cartouches for the Saloon of Dumfries House, Scotland, where they were described in 1795 as '2 oval Looking Glasses' (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, fig. 271; Christie's house sale catalogue, 12 July 2007, lot 20). Originally white-painted, the Dumfries mirrors were supplied in 1759 at a cost of £36 15s and were invoiced as '2 large oval pier glasses wt. rich carv'd frames & painted white'. Their success no doubt inspired further Chippendale patterns published in the 1762 edition of the Director, pl. CLXVIII.