CIRCA 1685-1700, THE LACQUER JAPANESE, PREVIOUSLY WITH A CRESTING

This fascinating mirror is a great rarity - the impressive size of the mirror plate alone was difficult to achieve at this early date and its convex frame veneered in imported Japanese lacquer inlaid with mother-of-pearl is virtually unseen and would have only been supplied to the most fashionable 17th century houses. The mirror (now lacking its cresting) is likely to have formed part of a pier-set, accompanied by a table and stands in a bedroom apartment, which also likely displayed a lacquer cabinet-on-stand. Numerous such suites are listed in the early inventories of Ham House including one listed in the Duchess of Lauderdale's bedroom in 1677, similarly executed in imported coromandel lacquer (see P. Thornton, 'The Furnishing and Decoration of Ham House', Furniture History, 1980, p. 114, and fig. 103). Other suites of veneered lacquer dressing furniture can be attributed to the Royal cabinet-maker Gerrit Jensen. A dressing mirror and table remain at Boughton House, where the mirror retains its original cresting bearing the cipher of Elizabeth, Countess of Montague (illustrated in A. Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714 From Charles II to Queen Anne, Woodbridge, Sussex, 2002, p. 153, color pl. 5:13). Jensen's invoice to the Duchess of Somerset at Petworth House includes an entry dated 1690 for a 'Glass in a black Japan frame and a Table to fall Like a Bewro and Stands £16', while at Chatsworth, the closet described as 'wainscoted with hollow burnt japan' (e.g. coromandel lacquer) was dismantled in 1700 when the lacquer was reused on furniture. Jensen is recorded working at Chatsworth supplying 'glasses tables and stands for Chatsworth' in 1691. Another coromandel lacquer mirror at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London is illustrated in G. Wills, English Looking Glasses, New Jersey, 1965, p. 66, fig. 6.
The closest comparable example (and the only other known to be veneered in Japanese lacquer) is the mirror of the Spencer pier-set originally supplied for Althorp (P. Thornton and J Hardy, 'The Spencer Furniture at Althorp', Apollo, March 1968, p.179, fig. 1).