Venetian Mirror In Lacquered And Gilded Wood

Rare Venetian mirror in lacquered and gilded wood. Frame shaped in every part. Original and contemporary mirror from the 18th century.

Completely intact and original from the 18th century, 1750.

Lacquer and chinoiserie
Venetian lacquer:
Lacquer indelibly marked the artistic epic of the Venetian eighteenth century to the point of becoming a dazzling and almost univocal symbol. Thanks to the surprising inventive fertility and extraordinary executive ability of the "depenters", it found successful application to an almost unlimited variety of objects, both luxury and for everyday use.
It should be noted that in this object the images and decorations are affixed through direct painting without the use of so-called "papers", i.e. thin layers of paper already painted and then glued onto the painted wooden base. The latter is a practice used above all in Bassano (Vicenza), an artistically flourishing Venetian town, among other things the birthplace of great artists such as Jacopo da Bassano (1510-1592). This last technique is the so-called and famous "arte povera".

The chinoiserie:
Around the beginning of the eighteenth century, a predilection for the exotic began to be expressed by the Venetians, the latter finding striking confirmation in the representations of chinoiseries: scenes of daily life of the time with characters with oriental features.

Reference bibliography: G. Lorenzetto, Venetian lacquers of the eighteenth century, Venice, 1938, tab. LVI, fig. 96-97; G. Morazzoni, Venetian lacquered furniture, II, Milan (1754)

Lucien Zinutti, The language of antique furniture, pg 54, 65, 67
C. Santini, The Venetians' lacquers, pg 78->103
C. Santini, A thousand Venetian pieces of furniture, pg 268, 269
S. Levy, Eighteenth-century Venetian lacquers, II, Milan 1967.

Details:
The superior decoration
Inside the body of the coping we find the figure of a Chinese man. In the eighteenth century, in Venice, these exotic figures were highly appreciated and were called chinoiserie.

Reference bibliography
We can find similar examples in volumes known to experts such as "Le lacche dei veneziani" by C. Santini, "Mille mobili veneti" by C. Santini, "Il lingua del mobile antico" by L. Zinutti.

Original mirror
The mirror is original from the 18th century and coeval with the frame and cymatium which are also original from the 18th century.