IN THE MANNER OF JOHN VARDY, CIRCA 1745-50

These remarkable mirrors, with their distinctive herm putti projecting to an unusual degree, lushly carved floral and fruit festoons, and Venus’s shell-capped crestings, relate to the work of influential designers of the 1740s and 1750s such as Mathias Lock (1710-1765) and John Vardy (1718-1765). The herms are a feature seen in Lock’s designs for mirrors, such as in his 1744 publication Six Sconces (plate 4) and in his design for a mirror illustrated in English Furniture Designs of the Eighteenth Century (P. Ward-Jackson, London, 1958, fig. 68). However, the lush foliate ornament and prominent display of ruffled shells perhaps relate these mirrors even more closely to the work of the architect John Vardy, celebrated for his work in a similar idiom at Spencer House and Hackwood Park, and who clearly drew inspiration from the Palladian style of Inigo Jones and William Kent, even publishing a book of their designs in 1744.

Related mirrors include a pair of oval mirrors with similar lush foliate frames supplied by William Bradshaw in 1743 for Ham House [NT 1140115.1-2], and a pair with boldly sculptural herms supplied by Samuel and William Norman circa 1760 for Woburn Abbey.