The Cantonese 'Roman'-medallioned frames, enriched with Venus pearl-strings, were originally japanned black in the Grecian manner. Their English mirrors, painted in the 1770s, celebrate the marriage of Archibald Campbell (d. 1825) of Blackhouse and Finlaystone, Renfrewshire to Katharine Fish. Campbell had made his fortune in the West Indies. Medallions, displaying the arms of Campbell of Inverawe, accompany pairs of Chinese pheasants that are enclosed by flower-entwined bamboo. These armorial escutcheons 'Gyronny of eight or and sable' are accompanied by the motto 'Pro aris et focis'. They were commissioned at the same time as an armorial porcelain service (D. Sanctuary Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, London, 1974, no. V15).
A similar framed and painted mirror from the collection of the Dukes of Northumberland was sold Sotheby's Syon House, 14-16 May 1997, lot 67. It appears that such glasses were generally exported to be decorated around the edge and incorporated in lacquered dressing-table chests such as one acquired in 1911 from the Oxford Street dealer David Isaacs, that is now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery.