THE GREAT LINFORD MANOR `KENTIAN' MIRROR

This ‘Roman’ pediment or ‘tabernacle’ mirror is emblematic of the national or ‘British’ style fashionable from the 1730s through to the 1760s (A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715-1740, Woodbridge, 2009, p. 297). It is designed in the ‘antique’ style promoted by James Gibbs in his A Book of Architecture, Containing Designs Of Buildings And Ornaments (1728). Gibbs’ drawings predate similar designs by his near-contemporaries, William Kent (c.1685-1748), and William Jones (1712-50), the latter adapting the style for inclusion in The Gentleman's or Builder's Companion of 1739. The term 'tabernacle' originally referred to a niche in a wall for a statue or bust and derives from antiquity where in classical temples such as the Pantheon in Rome, statues of deities were housed in niches around the walls. According to Bowett, the figure of the deity was replaced in mirrors by that of the viewer. There was also a stylistic link between ‘tabernacle’ mirrors and the rectangular architectural style of wall panelling which made its first appearance around 1720 (ibid., pp. 294-299).

A related mirror, originally in the collection of The Lords Burnham, Hall Barn, Buckinghamshire, sold Christie's, New York, 18 October 2001, lot 123 ($21,150 inc. premium). Another comparable mirror sold from the collection of ‘The late Nelson Grimaldi Seabra’, Christie's, New York, 8 April 2004, lot 297, and later, Christie’s, London, 7 June 2007, lot 17 (£28,800 inc. premium).

When the present mirror sold in 2005, the following ink manuscript paper label was affixed to the back: 'This glass belonged to the widow Mrs Uthwatt of Great Linford whom my father's father succeeded'. Great Linford Manor was inherited by the Uthwatt family in the early 18th century; in 1720, Thomas Uthwatt (d. 1754), Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1726, undertook a major remodelling of the house, which included installing the front door case with its fluted Corinthian pilasters and broken pediment, formerly surmounted by a stone cartouche carved with the Uthwatt arms, and the construction of twin stable pavilions with ‘Roman’ pediment door cases. Although few archival papers survive from this period, he was undoubtedly responsible for the installation of the ‘Roman’ pediment interior door cases, the pediments similar to that of the mirror offered here, marble chimneypieces and the ballroom overmantel in the manner of William Kent (c. 1685-1748), which features similar hanging-garlands and almost identical scrolled corners to the cresting (G. Jackson-Stops, ‘Great Linford Manor, Buckinghamshire: An arts centre for Milton Keynes’, Country Life, 25 November 1982, pp. 1658-1661). The name of Uthwatt would remain intimately connected to the house for over 250 years by a complex line of succession, culminating in its sale in 1972 to Milton Keynes Development Corporation by the last of the Great Linford Uthwatts, Stella Katherine Andrews Uthwatt.