When William and Mary extended Hampton Court at the end of the seventeenth century, the intention was to answer the great palaces of Europe. Baroque interiors of that ambition depended on mirror, then among the most expensive things a palace could contain, and whole rooms were surfaced in it to double the candlelight and the apparent size.
King's Argent is drawn from that idea. The design is a grid of mirrored tiles, each etched with leaves and flower heads held deliberately in shadow, as engraved glass holds its ornament: legible when the light is right, almost invisible when it is not. The 52 cm straight repeat matches the tile module, so the grid stays regular and the wall reads as a fitted surface rather than a printed one.
The whole design turns on light. In a room lit from a single window it will alter through the day, and under lamps or candles at night it does what the original rooms were built to do. A dining room is the obvious place for it, or a small hall where the reflectivity earns its keep. It hangs conventionally on a 0.52 m roll and belongs to the Historic Royal Palaces Great Masters collection.
