George III Carved Giltwood Mirror designed by Robert Adam (1728-92)
the original plate resilvered, with some repairs to the carving, the gilding refreshed
54 x 30 ¼ in
Further images
Provenance
Possibly supplied by Adam to Lord Shelburne for Lansdowne House, Berkeley Square, London in 1768Certainly the Collection of Lord Hereford, Hampton Court in 20th Century
Private Collection, UK
This mirror was executed to a design supplied by Robert Adam to Lord Shelburne in 1768. The design is now held at Sir John Soane's Museum, London (SM Vol. 20 No. 21). The mirror design was not published in Adam's printed works and therefore it must have been executed for Lord Shelburne for Lansdowne House, or for another Adam client, as no-one else would have had access to the unpublished design.
The descriptions in the 1806 Lansdowne House sale catalogue do not allow the identification of any specific mirror in the house. If the piece was not made for Shelburne/Lansdowne House then the eventual client remains unknown. It is known that Lord Coventry in particular ended up with a lot of designs rejected by other Adam clients. Specifically the design in the Soane Collection (SM Vol. 20 No. 64) was a mirror that was originally intended for the Drawing Room at Lansdowne House but having been rejected by the Earl of Shelburne it was offered to Lord Coventry instead. Lord Coventry accepted and his mirror was carved by Sefferin Alken but the mirrors at Lansdowne House are likely to have been provided by a combination of James Boyle and John Gilbert.
Between 20 June and 14 October 1768 James Boyle supplied ‘Picture and Glass Frames, Gilding Etc.’, costing £187 7s 6d to Shelburne House, Berkeley Sq., London. [Bowood MS] The Earl of Shelburne's accounts record payments to Boyle, c. 1771, of £100, £150 and £91 for carving at Lansdowne House, London. [A. T. Bolton, The Architecture of Robert and James Adam, vol. 2, p. 314] . From March 1767 to December 1768 John Gilbert was engaged on carved work at Berkeley Sq. (Lansdowne House) for Lord Shelburne ‘by order of Messrs. Adams Esq.’ The total account came to £313 4s 3½d and included ‘carving a table frame enriched for hall £3 13s’, ‘making, carving and gilding in burnished gold a large glass frame with ornaments at top and bottom £33’ and ‘making, carving and gilding in burnished gold a circular table frame under ditto, fully enriched £30’
We are grateful to Christopher Coles for his research.