AN ITALIAN ROCK CRYSTAL AND EMBOSSED GILT-COPPER MIRROR
AN ITALIAN ROCK CRYSTAL AND EMBOSSED GILT-COPPER MIRROR
AN ITALIAN ROCK CRYSTAL AND EMBOSSED GILT-COPPER MIRROR
AN ITALIAN ROCK CRYSTAL AND EMBOSSED GILT-COPPER MIRROR
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AN ITALIAN ROCK CRYSTAL AND EMBOSSED GILT-COPPER MIRROR

PROBABLY VENICE, LATE 17TH CENTURY

Details
AN ITALIAN ROCK CRYSTAL AND EMBOSSED GILT-COPPER MIRROR
PROBABLY VENICE, LATE 17TH CENTURY
Of octagonal form, decorated overall with swags and large pendants forming elaborate flowerheads hung with further faceted drops, the outer border with eight large and seventeen small plates separated by a pierced foliate border, surrounding eight rectangular plates around an octagonal-shaped central mirror plate, the back lined with green fabric, replacements and restorations, the rock crystal elements largely 19th century
56 in. (142 cm.) high, 55 in. (140 cm.) wide
Provenance
Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (1827-1905), in the Salon Rouge, hôtel Saint-Florentin, Paris.
The Collection of the Rothschild family.
By descent to the present owners.
Literature
The Rothschild Archive, London, Inventaire après le décès de Monsieur le Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, A. Cottin Notaire, 16 October 1905 (hôtel Saint-Florentin, Salon Rouge, ‘Glace cristal Venise montée bronze – estimée trois cent francs’).

Lot Essay

With its frame richly encrusted with brilliant ornaments of various forms imitating flowers, this mirror is not only an extravagantly luxurious piece of furnishing but also a testament to the imagination and exceptional capabilities of Venetian glass and mirror makers of the Baroque era. During the second half of the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries Venice was the unchallenged center of Italian mirror making and glass blowing. In this mirror the products of these two crafts are combined to create a work that was unrivaled not only on the Italian peninsula but in the whole of Europe. Mirrors produced in Venice in the late 1600s and the 1700s were set in a variety of frames decorated in the most imaginative ways, including gilding or gilding a mecca , veneering with etched glass, painting, lacquering, covering in lacca povera or, as in this case, embellishing with glass and rock crystal imitating flowers. Here, the repoussé gilt metal frame adds additional brilliance and opulence to the mirror. Mirrors of this type were manufactured in various shapes but octagonal ones, such as this lot, appear to have been the most popular and sought-after.
This lot epitomizes the opulence of the “goût Rothschild” and it appears that other members of the family owned comparable mirrors, such as the one of more modest dimensions sold from the collection of Ann and Gordon Getty that was previously in the Rothschild’s legendary collection at Mentmore Towers, see The Ann and Gordon Getty Collection; Christie’s, New York, 23 October 2022, lot 541 ($289,800). Other closely related mirrors include one formerly in the collection of Charles de Beistegui at Palazzo Labia, Venice, sold Christie’s, Paris, 3-4 May 2016, lot 162 (€181,500); and one in the collection of the count and countess Brandolini d'Adda, see L. Verchère, Renzo Mongiardino: Renaissance Master of Style, New York, 2013, p. 124.

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