A Pair of Italian Neoclassical Giltwood Pier Mirrors

Description

A Pair of Italian Neoclassical Giltwood Pier Mirrors.

Each mirror having a rectangular plate with husk-carved inner slip and mirrored outer borders divided by rosettes, the entrelac frame surmounted by a pierced cresting of scrolling foliage surmounted by an urn, the apron carved with similar scrolling acanthus.

Italy, 20th Century.

These very decorative mirrors with their flamboyant richness of decoration, reflect those of Tuscan production in the 1780s and 1790s. Their classical friezes and scrolling foliage are inspired by classical sources such Piranesi’s drawings of ancient Roman friezes at the Villa Albani.

A related pair of eighteenth-century mirrors of identical design, formerly in the collection of Robert Henry Benson at Walpole House, Chiswick, are illustrated in J. Conran, ‘Country’, London, 2010, p. 96.