Looking Glass

Isaac Platt

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the design of this looking glass, sculptural fleur-de-lis corner brackets are accompanied by repeating Neoclassical bands and acanthus-like motifs to frame an impressive length of mirrored plate glass. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, large glasses aided in the amplification of sun- and lamplight within a room. They were often placed either horizontally over fireplaces or vertically between windows. This looking glass, one of a pair (see 1979.393.1), bears some stylistic and construction similarities to labeled examples from the shop of Isaac L. Platt, a looking-glass manufacturer and retailer active from 1815 to 1843 on Broadway in New York City.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art