This pier glass is almost certainly one of three supplied for the Prince and Princess of Wales's State Apartment at Hampton Court in 1715. The invoices from Moore & Gumley include three mirrors of large scale with dimensions and basic description which match approximately three surviving mirrors (RCINs 1090, 1104 and 1105). They were for the three principal State Rooms: Privy Chamber, Drawing Room and Bedchamber. The Drawing Room mirror was described in the account from Moore & Gumley:

‘For a large glass in a glass frame and ffestoon finely done with carved and gilt work containing eleven foot ten inches and a halfe by four foot nine inches and a half £156’.

This account describes a frame ‘containing’ a plate of specific dimensions (362 x 146 in centimetres), which correspond to the inner plate of RCIN 1090 rather than its outer frame. Given the high cost of mirror plate, it makes sense to measure the plate dimensions in this way as evidence of the expense. The mirror was supplied by John Gumley, business partner with James Moore, and whose name appears in raised lettering on a strip of gilt-gesso on one upright. John Gumley was a leading supplier of mirrors and pier glasses in the early eighteenth century. He worked for court in the furnishing of the Royal Palaces during the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. He occasionally worked in partnership with the cabinet-maker James Moore.

The design of the mirror depends on French prototypes. A concession to the classical orders is made in the use of a Corinthian capital atop each upright, which are glazed, silvered and bevelled. The size of the mirror emphasises the large scale of the expensive central plate (replaced in 1958 by Messrs. Robinson & King, Stratford, E15).

Text adapted from The First Georgians; Art and Monarchy 1714 - 1760, London, 2014