Fine and Important Pair of Polychrome Decorated Giltwood Mirrors

Provenance:
The Thorold baronets, probably Sir Nathaniel Thorold, 1st Baronet (d.1764)
The Dona dalle Rose family, Venice, by repute
Italian noble family, by descent

The heraldic shields to the cresting of the present mirrors belong to the Thorold baronets, and almost certainly correspond to Sir Nathaniel Thorold (d. 1764). Thorold inherited the estate of Harmeston, Lincolnshire from Sir Samuel Thorold in 1738, and was created Baronet in 1740. He is said to have travelled to Italy in 1741 to escape his debts, and quickly amassed a fortune in Genoa before becoming a merchant in Naples. By 1749 he had built a villa on the island of Capri, where an 18th century correspondent noted he was ‘much respected by the whole island’; he died at Capri in 1764 (J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701-1800, New Haven and London, 1997, p. 938).

The Palazzo Dona dalle Rose, Venice, is a magnificent example of Renaissance Venetian architecture with well-preserved Baroque ornamentation on the piano nobile, which was commissioned c. 1600 by Doge Leonardo Dona (d. 1612) and completed after his death. It is one of the last Venetian palaces still owned by descendants of the founder’s family. Part of the celebrated collection of the Palazzo was recorded in 1934 in a catalogue by G. Lorenzetti entitled ‘La Collezione Dei Conti Dona dalle Rose a Venezia.’.