Italian, Venice
Paneling from the Palazzo Morosini on Campo Santo Stefano, Venice: Mirror (Specchiera), 1760-1780
Painted and gilded wood with mirrored glass, 373.5 x 141 cm (147 1/16 x 55 1/2 in.)
This mirror is mirrored glass surrounded by painted and gilded thin wood vines. The main mirror is divided into two parts by the golden frame: the upper half, that looks like a semi-circle, and the lower half, which is rectangular. At the top of the upper half, two wooden white-skinned angels with wings are playing instruments among the flowers and vines. One of them is blowing a trumpet, their cheeks puffed out. In the middle of the two angels, there is a leaf with a sword and a helmet carved on it. The vine goes from the top of the mirror to the bottom. In the middle of the lower half of the mirror, an upside down bunch of flowers ia painted in the center.
Little Salon
Commentary
In 1897, Isaballa acquired interior paneling, including this mirror, from the Palazzo Morosini in Venice. At the top of the mirror is an oval shield with the arms of Doge Francesco Morosini (1619-1694). A sword supporting a helmet commemorates his victories over the Ottomans and the two carved and painted putti continue the theme of triumph: one plays a trumpet and the other holds the victor’s plaque. Carved flowers and foliage decorate the upper frame, which is marked at the upper corner with protruding sprays of flowers. Delicate gilded wood moldings hold twenty-one pieces of glass in place within the frame. The mirror was broken when it arrived in Boston in April 1898, and several of the panes were probably replaced. Isabella asked her friend, artist Martin Mower (1870-1960), to paint a spray of flowers on the large panes of glass in the lower frame to cover a crack.