An Italian parcel-gilt and mother-of pearl lacquered mirror, Venice, circa 1700

Sotheby’s, London, Highlights from an Important Private European Collection, 5 July 2006, lot 1.

This impressive mirror profusely decorated with flowers and chinoiserie figures demonstrates Venice in the late 17th/early 18th century as a centre for lacquered furniture and for innovation. It typifies the prevailing taste in the 18th century for Oriental goods especially pieces in red and black ‘lacca’ in imitation of Oriental lacquer which was very fashionable and highly prized at the time due to the West’s fascination with exotic countries. 

The technique of inlaying mother-of-pearl on a parcel-gilt lacquered ground either tortoiseshell or walnut was largely used in Venice at the end of the 17th century. The offered lot belongs to a small group of mirrors, with similar decoration and inlays and which can be divided in two categories: on one hand there are the mirrors that combine dark brown lacquer with mother-of-pearl, and on the other hand there are the examples combining polychrome lacquer with mother-of-pearl. 

A few mirrors from the first group with the dark brown lacquer are recorded and comprise two mirrors each in a private collection (illustrated in Clara Santini, Mille Mobili Veneti, Vol. III, Modena, MMII, pp. 245-246, fig. 421 and 423), a mirror sold at Sotheby's, London, 29th October 2008, lot 220 (£31,250), a mirror sold at Christie's, London, 7th December 2006, lot 35 (£66,000) and another sold at Sotheby's, London, 10th June 1999, lot 60 (£32,200).

The second group, with the addition of figural polychrome lacquer, includes the present and other examples such as a mirror sold at Sotheby’s, Paris, 28th February 2024, lot 56 and a table top in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (illustrated in Alvar González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, 1986, Vol. II., p.336, fig.716). A Venetian lacquered and mother of pearl mirror similarly decorated with chinoiserie figures is in the collections of the Gemaldegalerie Staatliche Museum, Dahlem (Alvar González-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, La Toscana e l’Italia Settentrionale, Milan, 1986, Vol II, p. 335., 714). Another Venetian mirror decorated with chinoiserie figures is in the Museo Civicio di Storia e Arte in Trieste, illustrated by Clelia Alberici, Mobile Veneto, Milan, 1980, p.159.