Lot Essay
Two other examples of the present mirror-frame are known. One is in the Musée national de la Renaissance at Ecouen (Saintes, op. cit., no. 78b), the other is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts at Dijon (Dijon, loc. cit.), and is dated 1577. Although elements of their decorative vocabulary are common to various European centres, the presence of the majority of the surviving examples in France suggests that they are products of the School of Fontainebleau. Further confirmation of this hypothesis is afforded by the model of a mirror of identical design in terracotta, which was excavated from the Tuileries and has been convincingly attributed to Bernard Palissy (Saintes, loc. cit.).