The mirror is likely to have formed part of a late 17th Century pier-set, and would have accompanied a table and stands in a bedroom apartment, which very likely also displayed a lacquer cabinet-on-stand. The convex frame is japanned with vignettes of figures and gardens in the Charles II fashion promoted by John Stalker of the Golden Ball, St. James's Market, and illustrated in patterns for dressing-table furnishings and a 'frame for a Looking Glass for Jappan Worke' in a 'Treatise on the Arts of Japanning, Varnishing and Guilding', that he published together with George Parker of Oxford in 1688.

The golden decoration is applied at the centres and corners in the contemporary French fashion. It reflects the so-called 'India' taste, fusing the ornament of manufactures imported by the East India Companies, and combines colourful Chinese flowers and landscapes with figures in contemporary Indian dress.

A related mirror with arched cresting, at Hampton Court, Herefordshire, is illustrated R. Edwards, The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1964, fig. 13.