A Highly Important Georgian Giltwood Mirror Designed By Matthias Lock and Signed by the Carver James Hill
Height: 86" 2m18.5
Width: 48" 1m22
This mirror is conceived in the fluent, controlled manner which distinguishes the work of the carver and designer Matthias Lock (c.1710-65), one of the leading figures of the English Rococo.
The overall form of the mirror is strongly symmetrical, and the carving of the individual elements emphatic and robust. The cresting is conceived as an open pediment, each wing being developed from conjoined C scrolls centred on a cabochon cartouche. At the centre of the cresting is a sunburst backed by a pierced rococo leaf, a device which is repeated less prominently at the base and is contained by a pair of strong C scrolls with fronded edges.
At each side of the frame, two inward-looking heads rise from powerfully modeled scrolls. The curious top knotted straw hats derive from contemporary French designs, and seem to have had a special appeal for Lock.
A characteristic of Lock's designs of the 1750's is the slender wreathed pilasters which form each side of the mirror's inner frame. The pilasters are linked to the main frame by a short diagonal garland of flowers, and across the head of the main plate is a horizontal garland carved with considerable depth and detail.
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English, Circa 1750
A Note on 'The Matthias Lock Mirror' by John Hardy
The introduction of 'Modern' taste during George II's reign caused the transformation of the Romano-British fashion principally associated with the Rome-trained artist William Kent (d.1748). It was now infused with 'novelty' and 'variety' as lauded by the artist William Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty (1753) and the upholsterer Thomas Chippendale's, Gentleman and Cabinet-maker's Director (1754). Amongst the principal furniture items to be 'modernised' were the early 18th century rectilinear and Roman-styled glasses that furnished the window-piers; and these were now serpentined to harmonise with the 'picturesque' design of parks and gardens laid out in French fashion that included Chinese and gothic elements.
This golden flower-festooned mirror was most likely commissioned by William Jones for the reception dressing-room of a bedroom apartment at Ramsbury, Wiltshire, and designed to harmonise with a pair of pier glasses hanging in its adjoining Salon (see R. Edwards and P. Macquoid, The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev. ed., 1954, vol. II, p.339, fig.72)
The poetic ornament of the Roman tablet-cornered, hermed and temple-pedimented frame derives from ancient literature, such as Ovid's Metamorphoses or Loves of the Gods, and appropriately evokes Apollo's power as light-giving sun god. Apollo's sun-chariot was accompanied by Aurora, the flower-strewing 'dawn' goddess; and these never-fading golden garlands recall the poets' concept of a Golden Age as a 'Ver perpetuum' of everlasting Spring, where love never grows cold.
The triumphal-arched and reed-banded frame, for the silvery water-like glass, has a wave-scrolled and pagoda-swept pediment that is antique-scalloped and over-grown with Roman foliage; while its hollowed centre displays a foliated and plumed cartouche that celebrates Apollo's power in controlling the Elements. It recalls the Roman adage 'Collegit ut Spargat' , in reference to the sun's ability to gather the clouds around it for their better dispersal. Here the cartouche's bubbled and sun-rayed sphere is wreathed in a scalloped band signifying clouds; while the rayed and scalloped 'label' cartouche at the mirror-base is supported by eagle-wings to recall Jupiter's title as the 'Thunderer'.
The frame, which is encrusted with glass in mosaiced compartments, serves to enlarge the glass and head-glass from an earlier 18'h century mirror. The pediment tympanum is enriched with garden-trellis compartments, whose lozenged form recalls the ceiling of Rome's Temple of Venus. It is banded by park-like herm-tapered pilasters, whose Roman truss-scrolls support bearded satyr heads, sporting rustic bonnets in 'Chinois' fashion . The latter would harmonise with the Ramsbury bedroom apartment, whose flowered Chinese paper reflected the fashion popularized by Parisian marchand merciers and East India traders.
The invention of this pattern can be attributed to the carver Matthias Lock (d.1765), whose early work for the carver James Whittle (d.1759) (later in partnership with Samuel Norman, Master Carver in Wood to the George III's Office of Works) was reflected in his 1744 ornamental pattern-book for 'sconce' mirrors entitled, Six Sconces, which included one with related hermed pilasters (p1.4). This form of herm also features in his 1752 ' New Book of Ornaments for Looking Glass Frames' ( Pl. 3) where it was shown alongside an en suite chimneypiece and overmantle.
The present mirror bears the signature of one of Lock and Whittle's colleagues, the carver James Hill (d. 1754).
Lock had also been the author of 'A new Book of Ornaments, Shields, Compartments, Masks, etc., 1740; and Six Tables, 1746; while his talent for ornamental engravings after the French fashion had already gained him recognition by l 744 as England's, 'best draftsman'.
In connection with the cresting of this mirror and Lock's association with Chippendale in the publication of the Director - it should be recalled that Apollo's Mt. Parnassus role as leader of the Muses of Artistic inspiration and the concept of 'Collegit ut Spargat' caused this phrase to be introduced by Chippendale as the purpose for the publication of his 'Director'
In 1744 Lock was described as ' the famous Matthias Lock, the most excellent carver, and reputed to be the best Ornament draughts-man in Europe'. His association with Whittle continued into the mid 1750s, when it was noted that due to his health, 'he did not attend the shop so much as their business required'. In the mid 1740s it was recorded that Whittle served as 'Carver' to Frederick, Prince of Wales (d.1752); and that his workshop was occupied by 'upwards of thirty men'. (see Thomas Johnson, The Life of the Author, 1744, quoted J. Simon, Furniture History, 2003, pp.l-64).
(See Adam Bowett. FHS newsletter... ref James Hill. ....also FHS 2003. etc/ etc.)
 "The Matthias Lock Mirror (Detail)")
