The pier-glass, with its laurel-wreathed cornice embellished with spheres and its reed-clustered pilasters surmounted by patterae-enriched tablets displaying Apollo-sunflowers, is designed in the early 19th Century antique style and incorporates a verre-eglomisé tablet in the French manner. The flower-cornered tablet, with entwined and flower-filled cornucopiae emerging from Roman acanthus derives from an antique frieze illustrated in G. P. Piranesi's della Magnificenza ed Architettura de' Romani, 1761 pl. XVII and is emblematic of Peace and Plenty. Del Vecchio originated from Moltrasio, Italy and is first mentioned in the Dublin directory of 1797 as "Vecchio and Company". The firm seems to have enjoyed a certain success at a relatively early stage as it moved to the fashionable Westmoreland Street between 1804 and 1806 as "lookingglass manufacturers". James Del Vecchio jr. set up a similar business in 1833 which remained active under his leadership until 1860, see D. Fitzgerald The Dublin Del Vecchios, Antiques Magazine, October 1981, pp. 910-914.