The serpentine and foliate-carved surrounds of these pier-glasses carved with scalloped and fretted ribbon-scrolls and acanthus-carved cartouches are designed in the George II 'picturesque' manner popularised by Matthias Lock's carver's pattern book entitled Six Sconces,1744, while their palm-decked pediments and reed enriched pilasters recall Ovid's Metamorphises concerning the loves of the gods. The bull rushes flanking the water-like mirror plate are emblematic of the diety Pan and recall the water nymph Syrinx, whose attempt to elude the fertility god's embrace by her transformation into reeds provided the pipes that bear her name