Portrait of Elizabeth Graham Painted on Mirror

Place of OriginChina

Dateabout 1785 (Frame about 1820)

DimensionsH: 51 3/16 in. (130 cm); W: 35 1/16 in. (89 cm)

MediumProbably in pernilla oil paint, executed on framed and imported European (probably French) mirror glass. Pro The Chinese frames made of lacquered and gold-painted wood, the British frames of gilded wood embellished with carton-pierre decoration.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2010.50

Not on View

Collections

Glass

Published ReferencesAntique House Furniture and Plenishing, 1922, (Sale of Lennox Castle’s contents).

Christie’s, English Furniture, (sales catalogue), London, King Street, 28 November, 2002, lot 10.

Geyssant, Jeannine, Peintures Sous Verre, Paris, 2008, repr. (col.) p. 171.

Page, Jutta, "Museum Accessions," Antiques, vol.CLXXVIII, no. 3, May/June 2011, repr. (col.) p. 84.

"Jurors' Choice", New Glass Review, 34, 2013, p. 73 repr. (col.) p. 91.

Comparative ReferencesComparanda, frames: See also A related frame embellished with a pediment frame embellished with ‘India” heads, serpents and bells, retaining the original lacquered Chinese frame within, was formerly in the H. J. Joel collection at Childwick Bury, St. Albans, Hertfordshire and sold from Childwick Bury, Christie’s house sale, 15 May 1978, lot 54. See also Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide, “The Reign of Magots and Pagods,” Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 37 (2002), pp. 11, 177-197. Comparanda, paintings: See also Jan van Campen, “Uit de Chinese collecti van Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest, Rijksmuseum Jaarverslag (2003), pp. 48-51; and “Chinese bestellingen van Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 53/1 (2005), pp. 3-18. See also Margaret Jourdain and R. Soames Jenyns, Chinese Export Art in the Eighteenth Century, 1950, p. 101, fig. 55. See also Paul L. F. van Dongen, Sensitive plates. A Brief History of Painting on Glass. Leiden, 1995. Technique: See also Hirai Tatsuro in: Sasaki Seichi, Wahyono Martowikrido, and Hirai Tatsuro, Indonesia Garasu-e Chosa hokoku, IV, 1989, p. 39. Related History: See also B. R. Tomlinson, “From Campsie to Kedgeree: Scottish Enterprise, Asian Trade and the Company Raj,” Modern Asian Studies 36, 4 (Cambridge University Press: 2002), pp. 769-791.Label TextIn 1781 Captain John Lennox of Antermony, Stirlingshire, set sail for India and China on a ship commissioned by the trading firm the British East India Company. Lennox was enamored of the young Elizabeth Graham (1764–1832), daughter of William Graham of Airth, Stirlingshire. According to family tradition, he took miniatures of both her and her twin sister, Christian (1764–1847), with him to China and commissioned reverse-painted mirror portraits of them, as well as one of himself (now lost). This romantic gesture did not, apparently, win Elizabeth, for she eventually married James Dundas of Ochtertyre in 1794 at age 30, with whom she had five sons. Her sister Christian remained unmarried.