QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG PERIOD, LATE 18TH CENTURY

The frame on this reverse-painted mirror is probably original and an example of how, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Chinese workshops copied frames of the style then popular in the West. Simpler than the frames of the preceding rococo period, the frames most often copied at this time were oval or rectangular, gilt, and included a row of carved ‘pearls’ along the glass, with a plant motif on the outer border, as seen here (T. Audric, Chinese Reverse Glass Painting, 1720-1820, Peter Lang, 2020, pp. 110-113).

Interestingly, this 'pearl' style frame later become popular in China during the mid-19th century when reverse glass painting became a fashionable Chinese art, rather than strictly for the export market. The Chinese frames were typically un-gilded, and became known as the 'abacus frame'. They were the first permanent 'rigid' frames used in Chinese homes. Prior to the Western presentation of such frames at the Chinese aristocratic courts, they were unfamiliar with 'rigid' frames, as the traditional Chinese forms of display included paintings fastened onto rollers, with flexible frames, or papers printed with popular imagery and fixed directly to the wall (ibid., p. 109). Thus, the introduction of reverse-glass painting to China had a lasting influence not only on the history of Western interiors, but on that of Chinese interiors as well (ibid., p. 113).