PROBABLY ENGLISH, 1760-1780

This striking looking glass with its exquisite gilt fretwork design displaying an ornate basket framed by elaborate scrollwork throughout represents the height of fashion in the Chippendale era. Most likely imported from England, such pieces were greatly desired in the mid-eighteenth century with larger cities like New York, Boston and Philadelphia among the first to feature such goods. As David Barquist notes, "The evidence for the large-scale importation of English looking glasses during the Colonial period is confirmed by the advertisements and shop records of Americans who sold them [as] [i]ndependence from England apparently did little to slacken the pace of importation" (American Tables and Looking Glasses (New Haven, 1992), p. 294).