Description:
Queen Anne rectangular looking glass or mirror with a walnut veneer frame. A looking glass was essential to measuring oneself against accepted standards of refinement. The cost of materials as well as the ability to reflect available light made looking glasses valuable symbols of status. Most were imported from abroad. This walnut veneered example illustrates the standard import before the Revolution: small with little decoration at the sides that might be damaged in shipping. Several examples have histories of ownership in the Connecticut River valley. Small, hand-held glasses were also desirable. On a shopping trip to Boston in 1797, eighteen-year old Betsy Phelps of Hadley, Massachusetts, wrote home to her mother, Elizabeth Porter Phelps (1747-1817) for the “little looking glass that stands on my dressing table,” so that she might better judge the impact of current fashion on her appearance. The looking glass has a very high elaborately scrolled crest with a center gilded, carved ornament, straight sides, and a scrolled bottom with a carved, gilded ornament. The glass has a plainly molded gilded liner.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+0186 |
