Louis XVI Giltwood Mirror ‘A la Grecque’

With its urn cresting and heavy swags, this mirror is an example of goût grec, the early phase of the neo-classical style. Probably the first experimental item of this style is the celebrated bureau plat made circa 1754-56 for Ange-Laurent Lalive de Jully to the designs of Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain (1714-1759), which is now at the Musée Condé at Chantilly. This style, fully demonstrated by this bureau but also by the bold rosette and borders of this mirror, is closely linked to Louis XIV architecture and ornaments. Within a few years, this fashion had gained wide popularity, and in 1763 Baron de Grimm was writing about Paris: tout se fait aujourd’hui à la grecque (S. Eriksen, Early neo-classicism in France, 1974, p.264). In the field of furniture, too, the style had spread outside the sphere of a rarefied group of avant-garde patrons and collectors.