A PAIR OF LATE GEORGE III GILTWOOD AND GILT-COMPOSITION MIRRORS

With its distinctive carved stiff-leaves on a burnished ground, these mirrors recall  the furniture supplied in the 1790s by James Newton of Fell and Newton for the 1st Marquess of Exeter (d.1804) at Burghley House, Lincolnshire (G. Ellwood, 'James Newton', FHSJ, XXXI, 1995, figs. 4-8). Interestingly the distinctive heraldic crest or garb of a wheatsheaf is borne by several hundred families – including the Marquesses of Exeter and the Dukes of Westminster – but with the distinctive garland, these mirrors are perhaps closest to the crest of the Zachary family of Arley Hall, Worcestershire.