A Large 19th Century Roman Empire Mirror

A Large 19th Century Roman Empire Mirror

The rectangular plate is set within a frame of hollow section. The outer edge is carved with a bold egg-and-dart moulding, and it encloses a broad cavetto frieze of sanded gesso, now painted black.

The sight edge is finely carved with a gilt leaf-tip moulding, and small carved leaves articulate the corners of both the top and sight edges. The gilding is worn to reveal the gesso and bole beneath. The plate is heavily oxidised, with dramatic clouding and dark veining to the silvering, likely a later added plate

NOTE
This frame is an Italian interpretation of the Empire style. It pairs the neoclassical vocabulary of egg-and-dart and leaf-tip ornament with a pronounced hollow section. The result is more robust, and less refined, than its Parisian counterparts, though comparable French versions of the pattern are also known. The quality of the carving, particularly the small leaves at the corners of the top and sight edges, points to a workshop of some accomplishment, probably in Rome.

The sanded surface of the hollow is a distinctive feature. Italian frame-makers mixed sand into the gesso to articulate and enliven a flat or concave field, a technique found from the 17th century onwards.

It is by no means common, and on occasion even gravel was used. The black paint appears to have been applied later over this sanded ground. It has been suggested that portrait frames were sometimes partly painted black on the death of the sitter, as a gesture of mourning.