A Matched Pair of Irish White, Cobalt and Clear Cut Glass Two-Light Mirror Chandeliers, one circa 1800, the other probably of later date

Philip Colleck, New York;

From whom acquired.

The indigenous glass industry in Ireland began developing in earnest in the early 1780s, and this particular form of an oval mirror with a faceted glass and hanging girandole appears to be an Irish invention. A single mirror chandelier of this form, sold Sotheby's New York, 19 October 1991, lot 350 and now in the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford is signed by John Dederek Ayckboum, the son of German immigrants to London who established a glass manufacturing and cutting business in Grafton Street, Dublin in 1783 (illustrated in the Knight of Glin and James Peill, Irish Furniture, London 2007 p.269 fig.254 and also Martin Mortimer, 'The Irish Mirror Chandelier', Country Life, 16 December 1971, p.1742 fig.6). Related mirror girandoles are in the collections of the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and similar pairs have appeared at auction including Sotheby's New York, 26 October 2002, lot 1807; Christie's Paris, 21 June 2006, lot 213, and Sotheby's London 18 May 2021, lot 51. A further similar mirror girandole is illustrated in Graham Child, World Mirrors, London 1990, p.144 fig.239.