A George I gesso mirror.
Note: The mirror retains virtually all the original gilding and the original bevelled mirror plate. The brass candle arms and sockets are replacements.
Percy Macquoid and Ralph Edwards were two of the most influential furniture historians of the last century. Macquoid’s seminal work, A History of English Furniture, published between 1904 and 1908, set a new standard for furniture research. Twenty years later, Macquoid and Edwards (Macquoid’s junior by some 42 years) together compiled the ground-breaking Dictionary of English Furniture.
Originally this mirror belonged to Percy Macquoid. Following his death in 1925, two years before publication of volume III of the Dictionary, his widow sold some pieces from the collection, including this mirror. Ralph Edwards purchased it and added the previously lost candle arms and sockets. It remained on display at the Edwards home in London as a token of the two men’s working partnership and friendship.
A rare pamphlet, circa 1900, by Godfrey Giles in the author’s archive includes an early illustration of the mirror without candle arms. The central London dealership of Godfrey Giles has long gone, and on its former site at the south end of Cavendish Square now stands the John Lewis department store.
The illustration of the mirror in the first edition of the Dictionary shows the mirror, again without candle arms, and in the Macquoid collection, while the revised edition of 1954 features the mirror with replaced candle arms and belonging to Ralph Edwards.