Mirror, mirror, in a frame

So I think someone hacked into my main email account, f*cking hackers. Still trying to figure it out and also what other damage they might have done.

Improvements in English domestic glass production in the second half of the century coincided with the fashion for raised-work embroidery and resulted in the production of some of the most spectacular examples of embroidered household furnishings of the seventeenth century. 

The three-dimensionality of the embroidery and the creative use of materials on this example are very impressive. The tail feathers of the peacock are created from fragments of actual bird feathers, there are tiny shells and bits of coral in the grotto surrounding the fish pond, and the costumes of the courting couple include details such as real lace trimmings and seed pearls.

 Mirror frame at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The biblical characters Jael and Barak, flanking the mirror glass, appear in the book of Judges. The frame is surmounted by a figure of Charity; animals, mythic and actual, symbolizing the Four Continents, occupy the corners (from upper left): a griffin representing Africa, a basilisk representing America, a stag representing Europe, and a camel for Asia.

Raised work embroidery was very popular during the middle of the 17th century.

A CHARLES II EMBROIDERED AND STUMPWORK MIRROR FRAME, LATE 17TH CENTURY

Folk Art Glass Beaded Mirror, probably northern Europe, probably late 18th century, the central mirror framed in beaded mosaic set onto canvas (probably linen) depicting animals in a forest of trees and flowers in a faux tortoiseshell lacquered frame. Sold for:$7,995

In the Great Parlour, this mirror is surrounded by three dimensional embroidery called stumpwork. The colourful stumpwork is made up of five components of varying age. The top and side panels were completed by Sir Walter Jenner’s sister-in-law when she stayed here in the 1920s.