A Pair of George II Giltwood Mirrors, in the manner of Matthias Lock, Circa 1745

This impressive pair of mirrors shares stylistic affinities with a corpus of surviving work traditionally associated with Matthias Lock. The vertical scrolls, shellwork and flanking masks on the upper sides of the frame appear in Lock's engraved designs for mirrors from several published sources of the 1740s and 50s including Six Sconces (1744) [Figs. 1, 2]. These ornamental elements appear in the monumental mirror supplied by Locke to the 2nd Earl Poulett for the Tapestry Room at Hinton House, Somerset (now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; illustrated in Geoffrey Wills, English Looking-Glasses, London 1965, p. 86, fig. 60). Mirrors conceived in a similar vein include a pair formerly at The Vyne, Hampshire, sold Sotheby's 5 November 1971, lot 117 (one illustrated in Graham Child, World Mirrors 1650-1990, London 1990), p. 96 fig. 113; a pair of pier glasses at Uppark, West Sussex, and a further pair formerly at Ramsbury Manor, Wiltshire, illustrated in R. Edwards and P. Macquoid, The Dictionary of English Furniture, 1954, vol. II, p. 339, fig. 72. A pair of mirrors formerly in the Van Cliburn collection is probably the most closely related recorded example to the present lot (sold Christie's New York, 17 May 2012, lot 114).

The designer and woodcarver Matthias Lock (c.1710-1765) was one of the most important practitioners of the Rococo style in mid-18th century England. He may have been born in Portsmouth, and is first recorded in London in 1734 on the occasion of his marriage to Mary Lee at St Paul's, Covent Garden. Biographical information and precise details of his commissions are limited, and he is best known for his volumes of engraved designs, which include Six Tables (1746), A Book of Ornaments (1747, later reissued as A Book of Shields); A New Drawing Book of Ornaments, Shields, Compartments, Masks, &c., and The Principles of Ornament, or the Youth's Guide to Drawing of Foliage (undated) and A New Book of Ornaments with Twelve Leaves Consisting of Chimneys, Sconces, Tables, Spandle Panels, Spring Clock Cases, Stands, a Chandelier and Girandole, etc. published in 1752 in collaboration with the engraver Henry Copland and regarded as the most important pattern book of the Rococo style to appear prior to Chippendale's Director (1754). 

A collection of over two hundred of Lock's original drawings was acquired from his descendants by the recently established Victoria & Albert Museum in 1862-63, and annotations to some of the sheets reveal Lock provided furniture for Lord Holderness, the 1st Duke of Northumberland, and a 'Mr Bradshaw', probably the London cabinetmaker William Bradshaw (fl.1728–d.1775). The collection also includes drawings attributed to Thomas Chippendale, suggesting Lock also was subcontracted work by him. After his death his designs were re-issued by the publisher Roger Sayer in 1768, who described the artist as 'the famous Mr Matt Lock recently deceased who was reputed the best Draftsman in that way that had ever been in England'.