White House Jharokha Wall Art – Opening Gold Doors, 20x16

What you are looking at

The doors are cut as a pointed jharokha arch and pierced with quatrefoil and teardrop openings, so even closed you see fragments of the mirror behind them, broken up like light through a screen. Open them and you get the whole arch. The ivory ground is distressed — the gold rubbed back at the edges so the piece reads as something that has been on a wall for a long time rather than something that arrived last week.

The frame is cream with a fine gilt bead running the inside edge.

Why the White House

One of five panels, each named for an American landmark or landscape and painted in its colours. Where the others take national parks, this one takes the building — white, columned, formal — and answers it in ivory and gold. The other four are Emerald Yosemite, Amber Bryce Canyon, Thunderstorm Blue Ridge and Yellowstone Mist.

Where it goes

It is the most neutral piece in the series, which makes it the one that goes into rooms the others cannot — a cream hallway, a formal living room, a bedroom where colour would be too much. It also suits a room where a mirror facing the bed or the front door is unwanted for Vastu reasons: close the doors and it is a panel, not a mirror.

Hanging it

A bracket is fitted to the back. At 1.37 kg, with doors that swing, use a screw into a drywall anchor so the panel cannot shift when they are opened. Screws and wall anchors are not supplied.

Care

Dust the relief work and the pierced doors with a dry, soft brush — both hold dust and a cloth will snag on the cutouts. Glass cleaner on the centre mirror only, applied to the cloth. Do not oil the hinges.