An exceedingly fine and rare pair of English mahogany inlaid pole or fire screens with the original silk and linen needlework insets featuring a young boy and girl in an garden. In the eighteenth century, it was unfashionable for upper class women to have tanned or ruddy faces as such was associated with the lower classes. Fire screens such as these were placed in front of the fireplace in order to shield the faces of those who sat in front of the fire warming themselves.

CA.04.3.100.1