The European looking glass trade was highly organized, confronting the American craftsmen with overwhelming competition. The preponderance of these imported glasses is evidenced in the Philadelphia carver and gilder James Reynolds’s advertisements: “a full assortment of Looking Glasses Imported from France, England and Germany, a great variety of sizes, in carved and gold, mahogany and gold, white or plain mahogany frames…. He has for sale, and makes to order, every kind of Looking Glass, acknowledged superior to any imported work. Together with picture framed House Work, and every other branch of the Carving, Gilding and Looking Glass Business, at the very lowest rates.” 

Technical notes: Gilded sylvestris pine (frame and backboard), eastern white pine (shell and cartouche support). The ornaments are made of composition.

Related examples: Only a small number of looking glasses have been microscopically analyzed. Those with a similar makeup are catalogued in Montgomery 1966b, pp. 269–71, 273–74, nos. 226, 227, 231; Rodriguez Roque 1984, pp. 260–61, no. 121; Barquist, Garrett, and Ward 1992, pp. 51, 318–19, no. 178.  

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.