ROBERT ADAM'S MIRROR FOR THE LIBRARY AT APSLEY HOUSE

A design for this architectural overmantel mirror forms part of the Robert and James Adam office drawings for Apsley House, London, held at the John Soane Museum, London (SM Adam Volume 20/175). It is inscribed ‘Glass frame for the Library for The Earl of Bathurst’, and ‘Adelphi, 12th June 1778’; the latter, the location of the Adam office. Although some of the original decorative mouldings were subsequently removed, in all other respects - form, glass plate configuration and the recumbent stag surmounting the tablet-centred frieze, relating to the Earl Bathurst’s coat-of-arms and supporters, ‘two stags argent, each gorged with a collar gemel ermines’ - this mirror is undoubtedly modelled on the Adam design, and is almost certainly the one supplied to Apsley House in circa 1778; a date that coincides with other Adam furniture designs for the house made between 1778 and 1779. The Library where this overmantel was situated was on the ground floor of the mansion. This overmantel, and all the mirrors at Apsley House, have been attributed to Sefferin Nelson (1769-c. 1796), carver and gilder of Marshall St, Golden Square, London, who executed Adam’s mirrors for Derby House, London (E. Harris, ‘Adam at No. 1 London’, Country Life, 1 November 2001, p. 100). The Drummond Bank accounts for Lord Bathurst show that Nelson was paid the large sum of £259 in 1779, and £200 in 1780 (ibid.). Nelson was one of Adam’s preferred craftsmen, working with the architect-designer on other commissions such as Croome Court, Worcestershire and Audley End, Essex.

When the Lord Chancellor, Henry, 1st Baron Apsley (later 2nd Earl Bathurst, 1714-94), wanted a prominent London house, he turned to the most fashionable architect-designer of the day, Robert Adam (1728-92), to design Apsley House at the top of Piccadilly - No. 1 London. The five-bay red brick mansion was built between 1771-78 at a cost of £10,000, and was reputed to have been ‘the most notable act of his [Bathurst's] life’. The commission also comprised Adam interiors including a stylish Etruscan-style room, and furnishings. Twenty-six of Adam’s designs for furniture for the mansion dated circa 1778-79 have survived, including a design for this overmantel mirror, and are now in the collection of Sir John Soane's Museum, London. Adam was assisted in his endeavour by many of the craftsmen he used on a regular basis: Ince & Mayhew, Sefferin Nelson, Joseph Rose, John Devall and Antonio Zucchi. The importance of the commission was such that Adam referred to it in the Preface to his Works of Architecture (vol. II, 1773). In 1779, following its completion, Hannah More, the Countess Bathurst’s friend recorded: ‘Apsley House is finished; and most superbly furnished, and, which is not always the case with superb things, it is very beautiful and teaming with patriotism, for all her glasses, hangings and ornaments are entirely English’. The Bathurst family remained in residence at Apsley House until 1807 when the 3rd Earl Bathurst sold the lease for £16,000 to Richard, Marquess Wellesley (1760–1842), elder brother to Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), later ennobled as the Duke of Wellington following his military victories in the Peninsular and Napoleonic wars, and who from 1817 was the owner of Apsley House, retaining the architect Benjamin Dean Wyatt (1775-1852) to remodel the house in the form that exists today.