LOT DETAILS

Materials:

silver, enamel, lapis lazuli, chalcedony and mahogany

Measurements:

13.39 in. (34.00 cm.) (height) by 14.37 in. (36.50 cm.) (width)

Description:

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Markings:

Stamped

Literature:

Dr. Stephen Martin; Ardmore, PA USA; March 2011; The word iconic, derived from the Greek ikon, has among its many meanings "likeness or portrait." With this beautiful mirror, Knox has fulfilled its meaning; he has created an artistic portrait and imbued it with so much of his spirit that it can be rightly called iconic.; Finally, a mention must be made of Knox's attention to design detail in his handling of the strut that supports the mirror's frame. In no other object with a wooden frame (most notably the Lewis mirror) does Knox call for a silver rather than wooden strut, or does he decorate with enamel and chased entrelacs. The only other instance of struts incorporated as design components appears in a pair of small silver gilt and enamel frames (p. 231 middle). Possibly conferring additional specialness on this object (was this a feature that could be special ordered by a client?), it also gives Knox the opportunity to use a different enamel palette as well as a heartier style of entrelac at its top and base.; Demonstrating the sensibility of a scribe illuminating a manuscript or a painter working on a composition (both of which he was to become later in his career), by employing his line to outline the mirror's plane, Knox controls the viewer's gaze, moving it around the piece much as he might on vellum or watercolor paper. Taken together the verticality of the wirework branches and the altered circular border create an open space that has the feel of a page from an illuminated manuscript; that is, where the text is bordered, outlined in a beautiful fashion lending a kind of preciousness to what is contained within. The shape that Knox creates for the mirror elevates a looking glass to another level of beauty, perhaps to complement, at least in the eye of the beholder, the beauty of whosoever gazes into it.; In the mirror, Knox's use of wire not only creates a three-dimensional object, but helps to define, in concert with the mirror's inner silver border, a more complex outline, elevating what otherwise might be merely a pretty, useful object to something more. Knox defines the mirror's surface first with a nearly full circle but then surprises; he flares its outline with small flanges and then introduces a kind of architectural peak where the silver front moves into the mirror's space like a gable, helping to frame the enamel cartouche. This outline is resonant with the overall form of other Knox creations, most notably his pendants and elements in his necklaces (to fully appreciate this resonance it is best to view the pendants upside down). Moreover, Knox's penchant for outlining in this fashion is evident in the shapes of the faces and of the forms of several clock designs as well as on pieces of thick board, found among his papers, onto which he pasted images of his own designs cut from Liberty & Co catalogues that he would then outline in the same manner. Perhaps he did so to claim these anonymous designs as truly his own?; Of special note is the Knox's use of silver wire as a design device. Where his mastery of the entrelac enables him to take command of the flat plane of an object, his elegant and imaginative handling of silver wire does the same by achieving a similar effect in space. This is particularly evident in a Chalice from 1904 (Private Collection, photo available) that incorporates, like the mirror, a turned piece of lapis lazuli.; This kind of original handling of materials and design occurs in the best of Knox's work during the mature period. An excellent example that echoes the mirror's enamel cartouche is a stunning drawing of a tiara (p. 132) that can be found in the Print Room of the Victoria and Albert Museum among a cache of Knox designs rescued from the trash bin by Denise Wren, his favorite student, and then donated by her to the museum after his death. Another similar design motif can be found in the enamel work on the body of Knox's Rose Bowl (p. 30) from 1902. While the tiara appears never to have been manufactured, the enamel work on the Rose Bowl pales in comparison to the complexity of the mirror's decoration; the arrangement of the stones, their shape, the chromatic counterpoint between warm and cool, and the musicality of the entrelac design that contains a richer enamel palette than in the Rose Bowl, all combining to make this object something very special indeed.; This large mirror, the only known variant, appears in the Liberty Silver Sketch Book, the large working compendium of the silver designs for the company, as the hand drawn design number 5020, just above a rendering of its famous cousin, the silver and enamel mirror in the Sidney and Frances Lewis Collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Such large table objects were relatively rare for Knox and mirrors were rarer still, this one quite possibly designed on order for one of Liberty's more affluent patrons. Unlike the Lewis mirror that remains a more two-dimensionally conceived object, this mirror engages with its three-dimensionality. Knox first establishes the mirror's physical presence by drawing the eye dramatically to an alternating line of cabochons of lapis lazuli and chalcedony that float on a cartouche of thick enamel, bounded and interlaced by delicately conceived, almost musical entrelacs. The size and profile of the stones, including the butter colored rectangular cabochon of chalcedony that is the capstone, and the richness of the enamel pool in which they are set invite touch. From there Knox deftly designs upwards and outwards, punctuating his three dimensional sentence with two silver stalks that rise on either side of the enamel plaque and resolve in tear-drop blossoms of the same stones near the top of the mirror. At that point, these silver and stone blossoms leave the surface of the object and become sculptural. Nowhere else does Knox join the dimensions in quite the same fashion.; The present lot carries clear evidence of Knox's masterful design sensibility. Bearing the date mark for 1901, this magnificent mirror falls into the beginning of what can be called Knox's "mature" stage which lasted from 1901 to 1905, during which his elegant line, sinuously rendered entrelac designs and distinctive sense of form work together to express what is quintessentially Knox. This stage was preceded by one (ca. 1897-1900) that, while working for the Silver Studio for Design and then initially with Liberty's, was characterized by a range of inspiration from the Neolithic (p. 57, upper right) to Japonisme (Covered Cup, p. 179, upper left) to Celtic art (Cup and Cover, p. 193, upper left). By 1901 these different influences came together, permitting Knox to hit his artistic stride.; The artistic signature of the great Manx artist, Archibald Knox (1864-1933) is unmistakable though not a single object bears his mark or is signed by him. As the creative engine behind The Liberty Style, or English Art Nouveau, Knox's Celtic infused designs propelled Liberty & Co to the foreground of avant garde decorative arts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Knox's great personal reticence fitted perfectly with Arthur Lasenby Liberty's policy of not ascribing designs to their artists in order to create his famous brand.; A Knox Masterpiece; Liberty Silver Sketch Book, Westminster City Archives, ref. LBY/1932, u.p. ; Dr Stephen Martin, Archibald Knox, éd. Artmedia Press, London, 2001

Provenance:

Collection privée, Royaume Uni