Doe and Hope

Description

The ebonised pair of late Victorian aesthetic movement wall mirrors of generous proportions, each with baluster turned pediments, gilt piping and motifs to include leaf sprays, urns, ing and roundels and having single shelves surviving from the aesthetic period of late nineteenth century England.

The mirrors are in good overall condition. The mirror plates are original with some foxing and sparkle and the frames are in mostly pleasing order with some looseness to the joints. One of the finals has a section of loss and has been reattached at some stage. Each mirror obviously had a lower pediment section under the shelf which is long absent to both mirrors though it doesn’t have a detrimental effect to the overall impression. The backs are dark stained and are also in original condition with brass hanging hooks for wall mounting.

The aesthetic movement can be seen as the bridge to the arts and crafts style. It often had formalised, restrained ornamentation, and was heavily influenced by Japanese decoration, knowledge of which flowed to the West in the nineteenth century through oriental imports. It rebelled against the lavish ornamentation and over-embellishment of the high Victorian period, and sought a purer, more precise level of expression.

Scarcely found as pairs, these mirrors have a beautiful symmetry about them and as such are capable of triumphant decorative impact.