A Magnificent Pair of Tall Queen Anne Red Verre Eglomisé Pier Mirrors

Of impressive scale, and untouched quality, the verre églomisé marginal glass panels with top shaped crestings, and overall exquisitely executed decoration displaying arabesques, strapwork, lambrequins, tassels, flowers and swags. The split arched bevelled central plates, of a refreshing clarity against the spirit of age seen within the églomisé borders, with outer gilded and black decorated frames.

This richer, and more expensive technique was developed in France and became popular in the great English and Irish Estates of the late 17th, early 18th Centuries. ‘Verre Eglomisé’, developed by a ‘Monsieur Glom’ (more formally known as the Parisian dealer, framer and restorer Jean-Baptiste Glomy (1711-1786)), was a technique consisting of decorating glasswork from behind, into which designs are then engraved, and then adding coloured foil and pigments – most frequently red or black – but shades of blue and green were also used. Here a lustrous scarlet red is used, providing the frames of mirrors with a rich, colourful and glittering appearance – oft seen by candlelight, they became irresistible to the royal and noble audiences, as the coruscating candlelight flickered in the evening dusk. Few of these grand pieces have survived, and their hairline ‘cracks’, repairs, and flaws in the marginal plates make them all the more untouched and appealing with this in mind; some wonderful examples are to be seen at Hampton Court Palace, Chatsworth, Penshurst Place, and in other private collections.
The provenance for these superb pair of pier glasses, lies with the great furniture dealer firm of Mallett’s; here you can see that all the panels of red eglomise are richly decorated with gilded motifs, reminiscent of Daniel Marot (1661-1752).

Provenance; Mallett, London
Further Literature; L. Synge, Mallett’s Great English Furniture, London, 1991, p.29, fig. 16.
Comparables; A similar scarlet ground and gold églomisé pier glass with a giltwood cresting is in the Untermyer Collection, Metropolitan Museum, New York (64.101.1001), and this is related to another églomisé mirror with silvered wood cresting and a blue background in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (W.27:1 to 4-1954).1 Both have been attributed to the carvers and gilders René and Thomas Pelletier (c.1680-1720), sons of the émigré Huguenot carver Jean Pelletier from Paris, whose workshop was in Covent Garden.

Height: 207cm, 6 foot 8 3/4″
Width: 82cm, 32 1/4″

£POA