Antique Sheraton Revival Hand Carved Giltwood Oval Mirror

This is an exquisite antique Sheraton Revival oval hand carved giltwood mirror, circa 1860 in date.

The mirror features an oval bevelled mirror plate in a gadrooned frame decorated with trailing ribbons, blue bell flowers and flaming torches to the sides.

The frame was hand carved from beech wood and then gilded.

There is no mistaking the unique quality and design of this stunning mirror and it will soon become the centrepiece of your home’s decorative hangings.

Condition:
In excellent condition, please see photos for confirmation.

Dimensions in cm:
Height 84 x Width 85 x Depth 3.5

Dimensions in inches:
Height 2 foot, 9 inches x Width 2 foot, 9 inches x Depth 1 inch

Thomas Sheraton
(1751 - 1806) was an English cabinetmaker and one of the leading exponents of Neoclassicism. Sheraton gave his name to a style of furniture characterised by a feminine refinement of late Georgian styles and became the most powerful source of inspiration behind the furniture of the late 18th century. His four-part Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterers’ Drawing Book greatly influenced English and American design.

Sheraton was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker, but he became better known as an inventor, artist, mystic, and religious controversialist. Initially he wrote on theological subjects, describing himself as a “mechanic, one who never had the advantage of collegiate or academical education.” He settled in London c. 1790, and his trade card gave his address as Wardour Street, Soho.

Supporting himself mainly as an author, Sheraton wrote Drawing Book (1791), the first part of which is devoted to somewhat naive, verbose dissertations on perspective, architecture, and geometry and the second part, on which his reputation is certainly based, is filled with plates that are admirable in draftsmanship, form, and proportion.

In 1803 Sheraton, who had been ordained a Baptist minister in 1800, published his Cabinet Dictionary (with plates), containing An Explanation of All Terms Used in the Cabinet, Chair and Upholstery Branches with Dictionary for Varnishing, Polishing and Gilding.

Some of the designs in this work, venturing well into the Regency style, are markedly unconventional. That he was a fashionable cabinetmaker is remarkable, for he was poor, his home of necessity half shop. It cannot be presumed that he was the maker of those examples even closely resembling his plates.

Although Sheraton undoubtedly borrowed from other cabinetmakers, most of the plates in his early publications are supposedly his own designs. The term Sheraton has been recklessly bestowed upon vast quantities of late 18th-century painted and inlaid satinwood furniture, but, properly understood and used in a generic sense, Sheraton is an appropriate label recognizing a mastermind behind the period. The opinion that his lack of success was caused by his assertive character is hypothetical.

Our reference: A2997