MID-18TH CENTURY

Both the practice of painting on glass and the flat glass itself were introduced to China in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. China had a long history of producing utensils and decorative objects in glass. The glass workshop in the Forbidden City was established in 1696, but no flat glass was produced and when it was attempted it was reported that the manufacturers ‘do not know how to do manufacture it with the proper materials’ (Breton de la Martinière, China, its costume, art etc, translated 1813). However, visiting dignitaries had brought mirrors as gifts for the Emperor, such as a Dutch mission which in 1686 presented the Emperor K’ang-Hsi with a pair of large European mirrors, the quality of which was a revelation to the Chinese.
The practice of painting on mirrors developed in China after 1715 when the Jesuit missionary Father Castiglione arrived in Peking. He found favour with the Emperors Yang Cheng and Ch’ien Lung and was entrusted with the decoration of the Imperial Garden in Peking. He learnt to paint in oil on glass, a technique that was already practiced in Europe but which was unknown in China in the 17th century. Chinese artists, who were already expert in painting and calligraphy, took up the practice, tracing the outlines of their designs on the back of the mirror plate and, using a special steel implement, scraping away the mirror backing to reveal the glass that could then be painted. Common designs included still lives, birds and groups of figures, usually depicted against backgrounds of rivers or pavilions.
Many mirrors were brought back to Europe by the companies who routinely plied their trade in the Far East, with some carried as ‘private trade’ by crew members (Graham Child, World Mirrors, London, 1990, pp. 361–386). The demand for such painting was fuelled by the mania in Europe for Chinese fashions, promoted by the likes of Sir William Chambers, whose Designs for Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines and Utensils was issued in 1757, and which found expression in the homes of the fashionable cognoscenti, such as the Chinese Bedroom at Badminton House, Gloucestershire, fitted up for the 4th Duke of Beaufort by William Linnell in 1752-54.

Forsyth Wickes (d.1964), a successful New York lawyer by profession, was a Francophile and passionate collector of French 18th century art, with much of his collection displayed at Starbord House, Newport, Rhode Island. He enjoyed being surrounded by beautiful objects, was curious about the history of objects and their previous owners and believed that art should be lived with and was best understood in a room setting. At the same time through his knowlege and enthusiasm he hoped to engender interest and taste in others. Inevitably the collection included many pieces that demonstrate the 18th century passion for the Orient, ormolu-mounted Chinese porcelain, Tang dynasty tomb figures, Meissen figures of seated Pagods, French lacquer and vernis Martin furniture with Chinese-inspired decoration and an English cabinet-on-stand made from panels of late 17th century Chinese lacquer, formerly in the collection of the Earls of Chesterfield at Bretby Hall, Derbyshire. Such furniture would have suitably complemented the mirror paintings offered here. Unsurprisingly in 1965 the collection was donated, almost in its entirety, to the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, and was the subject of a scholarly catalogue by Jeffrey H. Munger et al, The Forsyth Wickes Collection, Boston, 1992.