IRISH GEORGE III GILTWOOD PIER MIRROR, CIRCA 1765
This Irish George III giltwood pier mirror in the manner of Matthias Lock is one of the leading lots at Adam’s country house collections sale at Townley Hall on October 13. It was originally owned by the Hamilton family of Hamwood, Co. Meath. It is illustrated in Irish Furniture by The Knight of Glin and James Peill published by Yale University Press in 2007 and featured in Country Life in February 26 in a Jeremy Musson feature on Hamwood, Co. Meath. Hamwood House is now best recognised as the childhood home of celebrated Irish painter Letitia Marion Hamilton (1878-1964) and her sister Eva Hamilton (1876-1960).
The mirror is a fantastic example of the style popular in the George III period. Sometimes colloquially referred to as ‘Chinese Chippendale’, the frame is profusely carved in a confluence of C-scrolls, rockwork and leaf fronds, centred by an angelic mask to base and flanked on either side by wyverns, the shoulders providing perch to a pair of ho-ho birds and centre crest surmounted by a canopy of distinctly Eastern design. The estimate is €40,000-€60,000.