The mirror is closely related to mirrors supplied by Gerrit Jensen (though in all likelihood made in another workshop) for Palace furnishings during the reign of George I. At the accession of George I, Elector of Hanover, in 1714, his son George Augustus, became Prince of Wales. With his father and his two female companions, George, Prince of Wales and his wife, Caroline of Ansbach, Princess of Wales, occupied the royal residences of St James's Palace and Hampton Court Palace and therefore required new, distinctive furnishings - no doubt emblazoned with the badge of the Prince of Wales: three ostrich feathers. There was a requirement for new furnishings as the principal royal residence of Whitehall Palace was largely destroyed by fire in 1698, and therefore the entire court required to live in cramped and inadequate conditions at St James's, the junior - or nursery - metropolitan palace. Furthermore the previous Prince of Wales, James Stuart the 'Old Pretender', son of James II, was a mere 6 months of age when his father left Britain. And there had not been a Princess of Wales since Catherine of Aragon, when she was briefly married to Prince Arthur 1501-2. If the Prince of Wales feathers are original, this mirror could have been made for George, Prince of Wales, or for Caroline, Princess of Wales, for one of the private or state apartments at St James's Palace,. Alternatively, it could have been a commission after the Prince was expelled from his father's court in 1720, after which the Prince and Princess of Wales lived in Leicester House (today the site of Leicester Square). Large quantities of new furniture was commissioned by the Great Wardrobe to furnish St James's (and elsewhere - but especially at St James's) and yet no individual piece of furniture from that scheme remains in the Royal Collection today. This may seem at odds with today's antiquarian sensibilities, but can be explained through the requirement to regularly replace and update furnishings according to fashion and also changes in room or apartment use. Additionally, at the death of a monarch, the furnishings of specific rooms in the royal apartments were claimed as 'perquisities' by certain courtiers, according to rank (see R. Bird. 'The Furniture and Furnishing of St James's 1714-1715', Furniture History, 2014, pp. 180-186).
A similar mirror, attributed to John Belchier, which is close in design to a pier glass (2-4m high) at Erddig, Wrexham (NT 1146960), was sold at Christie's London, 23rd July 2020, lot 157.
