Chinese Wood Mirror Frame

Mirror framed in geometric lattice, with carved bands along the top.

This mirror frame is from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the 19th century. It is carved wood. Tibetans were traditionally semi-nomadic and owned few personal furnishings, so most Tibetan furniture stood in monasteries, and some of it was carted over the Himalayas to India as monasteries were destroyed. A rectangular beveled glass sits inside a broad, open frame of interlocking right-angle patterns, with small round rosettes at the intersections. The upper border has carved openwork bands. Surface is rich brown with some rubbing. It is 53 inches long, 2 deep and 64 high.

A frame fancy enough to make the reflection stand up straighter.