AN IMPORTANT PAIR OF GEORGE II CARVED GILTWOOD AND GESSO MIRRORS 1740

each with beveled mirror plate within a gadrooned and egg-and-dart-carved frame surmounted by a scrolled broken pediment centered by a cartouche with an earl’s coronet above, the frieze centered by a female mask and flanked by scrolling foliage above outset square corners, the sides with pendent acorns and oak leaves above scrolls, the shaped apron centered by an acanthus spray flanked by acanthus leaves on a punched ground.  One mirror with penciled inscription: 6 above dado and in chalk Glass 34I – 29B¸ the other with penciled inscription Mr. Corrys Dressing/Room.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 4^th Earl of Shaftsbury (1710-1751), St. Giles’s House, Wimborne St. Giles, Dorset

Thence by descent at St. Giles’s House to Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 10^th Earl of Shaftesbury by whom sold, Christie’s, London, July 6, 2000, lot 26

Partridge Fine Arts, London

Acquired from the above 2002

The Antique Collector, August 1962, ‘St. Giles’s House – The Dorset Home of the Earl of Shaftesbury’, pp. 143-152, p. 147, one of the pair of mirrors shown in the Small Yellow Drawing Room

Partridge Fine Arts P.L.C., Catalogue, 2001, item 9, pp. 28-30

St Giles’s House, Wimborne St. Giles, Dorset was built by the 1^st Earl of Shaftesbury in the 1650s on the site of a simple manor house erected some one hundred years earlier. It was by Anthony Ashley- Cooper (1710-1771), the 4^th Earl from his father the 3^rd Earl in 1713 who, after his majority in the mid 1730s, commenced remodeling the interiors, which had remained untouched for some one hundred years, in a more fashionable style.  For this he employed the architect Henry Flitcroft (1697-1769) who was originally apprenticed to a London joiner named Thomas Morris, being admitted to the freedom of the joiner’s Company in 1719. In 1720 he was appointed by Lord Burlington to be his draughtsman and architectural assistant. In this position he proved to be an ‘accurate and elegant draughtsman, but as works of art his meticulous drawings are dull affairs compared with the lively sketches of his colleague Kent’ (Colvin, Dictionary of British Architects, p. 310). Through the patronage of Burlington, Flitcroft was appointed to the position of Clerk of the works at Whitehall, Westminster and St. James’s. In 1746 he became master carpenter, succeeding Kent as Master Mason and Deputy Surveyor in 1748, and finally Comptroller of the Works in 1758, remaining in this position until his death in 1769. 

His work for the 4^th Earl at St. Giles’s House between 1740 and 1744 was mainly concerned with the redecoration of the interiors including the Great Dining Room, the Tapestry Room, and probably the White Hall. Presumably, the present pair of mirrors was commissioned by the Earl at that time, and it is not unlikely that advice was sought from Flitcroft regarding both their design and acquisition, Flitcroft himself being responsible for designing some table frames for the 2^nd Earl of Lichfield at Ditchley House, Oxfordshire. Certainly in his official position in London he would have had close relationships with some of the leading carvers and gilders working for the Crown, amongst who was Benjamin Goodison (c. 1700-67) and John Boson (1720-d.1743). The former succeeded James Moore as cabinet-maker to the Crown in 1726-1727, Boson being primarily a carver, working particularly for the Prince of Wales, one of his masterpieces being the Royal Barge. Vertue described him as ‘a man of great ingenuity and undertook great works in his way for the prime people of quality’.

Although the Earl’s surviving Household Accounts are somewhat sparse, they actually include a payment of £128 to Boson shortly before his death in 1743. Unfortunately the account is not itemized, and as he was known as a specialist carver, the payment might well refer to carvings intended for the decoration of rooms. A clearly related mirror was supplied by another carver and gilder, John Hoper, in 1741/2 for the Great Parlor at the Goldsmiths’ Company Hall (See: Brackett, p. 165).

Other cabinet makers mentioned in the accounts include ‘Mr Gibson’ who was probably the upholsterer Christopher Gibson of St Paul’s Churchyard and William Hallett who supplied ‘carved chairs’ for the sum of £167.

The strong architectural design of the present lot, with their ornamented broken pediments centered by Shaftesbury’s coronet, is closely related to the Designs of Inigo Jones and Others, published by Issac Ware, and also those of Batty Langley published in his Treasury of Designs, 1740.

A remarkable facet of these mirrors is not only the survival of the original beveled plates, but also the pristine condition of the highly burnished gold surface. This was preserved beneath two layers of oil gilding which were carefully removed when they were acquired by Messrs. Partridge.              

See:

Oliver Brackett, An Encyclopaedia of English Furniture, London, 1927

Country Life, September 10, 17 and 24, 1943, ‘St. Giles’s House, Dorset – The Home of the Earl of Shaftesbury’, Christopher Hussey