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The design for the mirror, published by Matthias Lock in 1744. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
A GEORGE II GILTWOOD MIRROR ATTRIBUTED TO MATTHIAS LOCK, English, circa 1745
Height: 54 in; 137 cm
Width: 31½ in; 80 cm
Width: 31½ in; 80 cm
4417951
£100,000 +
Further images
Note: The frame retains most of the original gilding. The mirror plate is original. This early rococo mirror belongs to a small group of mirrors relating to a design published...
Note: The frame retains most of the original gilding. The mirror plate is original.
This early rococo mirror belongs to a small group of mirrors relating to a design published by Matthias Lock as plate 4 in Six Sconces in 1744. Most have slight variations from the published design, but the current example follows the drawing in detail apart from being mirrored.
The carving is of exceptionally high quality and the best example within this small group. It would not be a surprise if this mirror was carved by the master himself. In 1769, four years after Lock’s death, the publisher Robert Sayer described him as ‘the famous Mr. Matt. Lock recently deceased who was reputed the best Draftsman in that way that had ever been in England’.
Provenance
Ronald Phillips Ltd., London, England;
Private collection, London, England.
Literature
Matthias Lock, Six Sconces, 1744, pl. 4.
Elizabeth White, Pictorial Dictionary of British 18th Century Furniture Design: The Printed Sources, 1990, p. 236.
Illustrated:
Ronald Phillips Ltd., ‘Antique English Furniture’, catalogue, 2000, p. 95.
Ronald Phillips Ltd., ‘Mirrors 1660–1820’, catalogue, 2010, p. 254.
