A large courtly giltwood mirror from a boisserie
Carved softwood with several layers of painted decor over plaster ground and gilding over red bole, replaced mirror pane. H 189, W 140.5 cm.
Design attributed to François de Cuvilliés, around 1730/40.
François de Cuvilliés (1695 - 1768) was the leading architect of the Bavarian court as of 1730. His appointment marked the transition from the Régence style to the Rococo. Clemens August of Bavaria, the young Archbishop of Cologne, entrusted him with the redesign of his Brühl palaces Augustusburg and Falkenlust from 1728. Karl Albrecht, Elector and Duke of Bavaria, ensured numerous further commissions, including designs for the Rich Rooms of the Munich Residenz or the furnishings of the Amalienburg in Nymphenburg Park, both highlights of the German Rococo. At the same time, Cuvilliés published numerous writings with treatises on architecture and designs for entire interiors or even individual pieces of furniture.
The curved side mouldings, the almost fully three-dimensional dragons and the high-relief mascaron at the bottom of the mirror offered here allude to elements of his designs, which were realised by various sculptors, for example by Wenzel Mirowsky or Joachim Dietrich in Munich.
Literature
Cf. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels, 2. vol., Munich 1970, p. 217, illus. 419 ff.