This red-framed mirror belongs to the romantic curiosities beloved of Sir Walter Scott (d.1832), and its flowered and triumphal arched crest bears the 'brave heart' associated with Robert Bruce, the crusader James Douglas and his descendant Sir William Douglas, who boasted 'thanked be God, there hath been few of my ancestors that hath dyed in their beddes'. Amongst the celebrated Douglas dynasty, who adopted the motto 'Forward, Brave Heart', was William Douglas, 1st Duke of Queensberry, who served in the later 17th century as James II's Lord High Treasurer. The mirror, whose silver heart is displayed against the golden foliage of 17th century leather, is reputed to have come from the Royal Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh. By the late 19th century, it was dated to the 16th century, when it formed part of the collection of Gourlay Steele, R.S.A. (d. 1894), who succeeded Landseer (d. 1873) as Queen Victoria's 'animal painter' in Scotland. By the 1920s it formed part of the collection of 17th century mirrors assembled by Colonel Norman Colville (1893-1974) and was illustrated, without being dated, in P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London 1924, vol. II, (fig. 3).