.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The attribution for this lot is based on other documented mirrors by Edinburgh furniture-maker (or 'wright') William Mathie, which feature a number of similar stylistic characteristics and distinctively shaped ornamental details. Mathie’s skill lay in the panache with which he executed his carved mirror frames: ‘Mathie knew a real joy in their creation. Trailing flowers cascade from one rococo scroll to another; aspiring plants with spiky leaves entwine themselves about the more solid framework of the glasses; gilded grass grows thickly about the inner frame’ (F. Bamford, ‘Two Scottish Wrights at Dumfries House, Furniture History, vol. 9, 1973, p. 86).
The elongated form corresponds to two pairs of mirrors at Mathie’s most celebrated commission, Dumfries House, Ayrshire, supplied in 1759 to William Crichton-Dalrymple, 5th Earl of Dumfries, sold respectively as lots 55 and 200 in ‘Dumfries House: A Chippendale Commission’, Christie’s, London, 12-13 July 2007 (before the house and its contents were saved for the nation). The balustraded balconies at the base of the frame are comparable to those found on of one of the Dumfries mirrors (lot 55). The sinuous giltwood foliate branches which entwine themselves around the framework of the mirror is also found on another Dumfries mirror by Mathie, lot 250 in the same sale, and another mirror supplied by Mathie to Francis Charteris, 7th Earl of Wemyss (1723-1808), for Amisfield House, near Haddington, Scotland, in 1760-61, and subsequently at Gosford House, Longniddry, sold Christie’s, London, 15 November 2017, lot 100 (£100,000 including premium).
The elongated form corresponds to two pairs of mirrors at Mathie’s most celebrated commission, Dumfries House, Ayrshire, supplied in 1759 to William Crichton-Dalrymple, 5th Earl of Dumfries, sold respectively as lots 55 and 200 in ‘Dumfries House: A Chippendale Commission’, Christie’s, London, 12-13 July 2007 (before the house and its contents were saved for the nation). The balustraded balconies at the base of the frame are comparable to those found on of one of the Dumfries mirrors (lot 55). The sinuous giltwood foliate branches which entwine themselves around the framework of the mirror is also found on another Dumfries mirror by Mathie, lot 250 in the same sale, and another mirror supplied by Mathie to Francis Charteris, 7th Earl of Wemyss (1723-1808), for Amisfield House, near Haddington, Scotland, in 1760-61, and subsequently at Gosford House, Longniddry, sold Christie’s, London, 15 November 2017, lot 100 (£100,000 including premium).