CIRCA 1690

Towards the end of the reign of Charles II, mirrors of this type occupied a conspicuous position in luxuriously appointed bedroom apartments, where they were placed between windows with a dressing-table below and flanked by a pair of candlestands. Mirror frames were made from a variety of materials, ranging from veneers of walnut, olivewood, laburnum, and other fruitwoods to ebony, tortoiseshell, and silver. This mirror's scrolling foliate cushion frame is closely related to a mirror belonging to Percy Macquoid (d. 1925) the cresting of which is also inlaid with eagles, although their heads are turned away from one another as opposed to towards each other, as in the present mirror (P. Macquoid, A History of English Furniture: The Age of Walnut, London, 1905, p. 157, pl. XId.; sold anonymously, Christie's London, 16 September 1999, lot 201). The fact that this mirror retains its pierced foliate-carved cresting above the marquetry eagles makes it an extremely rare survival.

Amongst other related pier-glasses is the 'Looking glasse frame of Ebony flower'd' listed in the 1679 inventory of Ham House, Middlesex (P. Thornton, ‘The Furnishing and Decoration of Ham House’, Furniture History, 1980). A bedroom suite was supplied by the Ludgate Hill cabinet-maker Thomas Pistor to James Grahme of Levens Hall, Cumbria in 1684 at a cost of £9.0.0: ‘Large wall(nut) flowerd Looking glass & Tables and stands flowered' (A. Bowett, English Furniture from Charles II to Queen Anne, London, 2002, pl. 4.19; and A. Turpin, ‘Thomas Pistor, Father and Son, and Levens Hall’, Furniture History, 2000, pp. 43-60 and fig. 2).