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The term chinoiserie refers to ornament in the Chinese taste. A large vocabulary of chinoiserie figures and devices invented by European designers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries included pagodas, figures in robes with long sashes, dragons, stylized fruits and flowers, and quaint Asian boats. True Asian lacquer decoration was made by laying down many layers of resins, sometimes embedded with gold and silver, to create a variety of stylized designs in low relief. Westerners often imitated Asian lacquer with paint and chinoiserie ornament, as seen in this mirror.
ProvenanceFrom 1964
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, acquired in 1964. [1]
Notes:
[1] In the early 1960s Charles H. Babcock (1899-1967) gave the house and its contents to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection (Reynolda House, Inc.) on December 18, 1964 with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
DepartmentHistoric House
Wall Mirror
Datecirca 1918
Mediumwood, wood veneer, painted wood, mirrored glass
DimensionsOverall: 55 1/2 × 21 in. (141 × 53.3 cm) [depth difficult to measure due to damage]
Credit LineReynolda Estate
CopyrightPublic Domain
Object number1922.2.159
DescriptionThe Queen Anne style mirror has a frame painted to imitate Asian lacquer surmounted by a wide shaped veneered panel painted with leafy scrolls at the edges, Asian figures facing left (female in gold and silver robes followed by a female attendant carrying a broad fan on a long pole) in the center painted in low-relief, and an openwork shell-like ornament at the top. The chinoiserie frame has a red ground decorated with raised figures in gold and silver of pagodas, flowers, fruits, Asian figures, and junks (Chinese boats). At the top of the mirror is an oval reserve painted with a scene of two islands with pagodas connected by an arched bridge with a small figure in a junk about to pass under the bridge.The term chinoiserie refers to ornament in the Chinese taste. A large vocabulary of chinoiserie figures and devices invented by European designers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries included pagodas, figures in robes with long sashes, dragons, stylized fruits and flowers, and quaint Asian boats. True Asian lacquer decoration was made by laying down many layers of resins, sometimes embedded with gold and silver, to create a variety of stylized designs in low relief. Westerners often imitated Asian lacquer with paint and chinoiserie ornament, as seen in this mirror.
ProvenanceFrom 1964
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, acquired in 1964. [1]
Notes:
[1] In the early 1960s Charles H. Babcock (1899-1967) gave the house and its contents to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection (Reynolda House, Inc.) on December 18, 1964 with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.
Status
On view
Object/Object
