A Louis XVI Style Gilt Bronze Mounted Mirror

A very beautiful Louis XIV style gilt bronze mounted mirror with a sumptuous arabesque cresting surmounted by the head of Apollo wearing a sun-ray headdress, flanked below by a pair of Classical two-handled urns with pinecone finials, each set upon a plinth, that are joined by acanthus leaf scrolls and a lambrequin drape and foliate swags above projecting foliate arabesques that frame the mirrored glass. The chamfered mirrored glass below, set within a rectangular frame with ovulo banding, flanked on each side by chamfered mirrored panels that are mounted at each corner by shell and foliate scrolled cartouches within a further rectangular frame with a running scrolled border
Paris, date circa 1880
Height 180 cm width 104 cm.
This large and highly elegant gilt bronze mirror dates from the latter part of the nineteenth century. While it predominantly reflects characteristics of the Louis XIV style, it also includes a few Classical elements that belonged to the later Louis XVI style. The most overt reference to Louis XIV, (who reigned from 1643 until his death in 1715) is the elaborate Apollo mask. Apollo, who was one of the twelve mythological Olympian gods and was identified with the sun god Helios, was later used as the emblem of the French monarch to denote him as the Sun King. Its overall decoration is also in keeping with the Louis XIV style, which was one of great richness where forms, lines and motifs aimed to reflect the grandeur, power, wealth and formality of the Sun King’s court. Louis XIV was a great supporter of the arts and in this, he was ably assisted by his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The latter was largely responsible for founding the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins, where the most sumptuous works of art, from ceramics and glass to large woven silk tapestries and carpets were created for the royal palaces, thus making France artistically self-sufficient and eventually the leader of European fashion. In glass, for example, an order for a series of large mirrors to furnish Château de Versailles, led to the foundation of the Manufacture Royale des Grandes Glaces, where large cast plate-glass mirrors were made. Prior to this, Venice was the main producer of glass, but as it was predominantly hand-blown, only smaller plates of glass could be manufactured. In France, Bernard Perrot (1638-1709) invented a new method for pouring flat glass onto a surface, which meant that far larger glass plates could be created. These soon forced the smaller blown-glass Venetian mirrors out of fashion, not only in France but all over Europe.
Whilst the present mirror looks back to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, it actually dates to the later quarter of the nineteenth century. At that period there was an increasing desire amongst the wealthier society figures, such as Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, to decorate their residences according to past historical styles. However, owing to the inevitable shortage of original pieces of furniture and furnishings from the Ancien Régime, exact replicas or new works combining a synthesis of one or more past styles, were created. Leaders in this field, working as both ébénistes and fondeurs, included such masters as Louis-Auguste Alfred Beurdeley (1808-82) and his son Alfred Beurdeley fils (1847-1919), as well as Henry Dasson (1825-96). Each were greatly admired. Dasson won several awards at the International exhibitions and was appointed a Grande Officier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1889, following his success that year at the Paris Exposition Universelle where, amongst other works, he showed a monumental Louis XVI style gilt bronze mirror.