PROPERTY FROM THE BARRERA-VERZOSA FAMILY
A Cheval Glass (Standing Mirror / Le Psyche)
last quarter of the 19th century (1875 – 1899)
Golden narra wood (“Pterocarpus indicus”)
Mirrorheight: 80" (203 cm); width: 20 1/2" (52 cm); length: 41" (104 cm)glass mirror only:height: 45" (114 cm); length: 25 1/2" (65 cm)


PROVENANCE: Private collection, Binondo, ManilaAmbassador Sergio Angeles Barrera; Supreme Court Associate Justice andlater Secretary of Justice Jesus Gonzalo Barrera y Alimurung;Don Marciano Barrera and Dona Valentina Alimurung



This elegant cheval glass has a big rectangular mirror in a thick molded frame surmounted by a crest of unfurling flowers, leaves, and scrolls; it has interesting rectangular insets at the top portion carved with flowers and leaves in shallow relief which further reinforce the mirror. The mirror is attached at midpoint by metal screws to a pair of elegant turned posts topped by urn–shaped finials; a fine turned baluster stretcher connects the pair of posts. The posts stand on two thick plinths reinforced with pairs of cutwork brackets; a thick turned stretcher connects the two plinths. Underneath each plinth are two small wheels for ease of mobility. In Philippine settings during the turn of the twentieth century, such an imposing piece was placed in the “caida” entrance hall, as in the Victorian manner in Europe and the United States. It was also placed in the “cuarto principal” master bedroom, where it also had its practical use. Given the Roces provenance and the age of this piece, it is most likely that this cheval glass once stood in the “caida” entrance hall or “cuarto principal” master bedroom in an early Roces “bahay–na–bato” residence in Bacolor, Pampanga. The cheval glass (from the French “cheval” horse and “glace” glass; also “le psyche”/standing mirror) is a freestanding, tilting, full–length mirror screwed at midpoint to two pillars on two or four feet (which is the “cheval” horse). The design was derived from small tilting mirrors in toilettes. It became the fashion in Paris from the early nineteenth century when it became possible to cast larger plates of glass and it lasted all the way in various styles to the Second Empire (1852–70) and to the Belle Epoque (1871–1914). (Augusto Marcelino Reyes Gonzalez III)