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The Downey brothers make a portrait of the four Dene sisters, all of whom were actors. And the most famous, Dorothy, a star of the Globe and the Shakespearian stage achieved enough celebrity to be included in the The Cabinet Portrait Gallery – a publication of portraits of celebrities that ap- peared in the early 1890s – a precursor of the many magazines, fanzines and annuals devoted to movie stars that appeared from around 1910 onwards . In respect of her status, Dorothy Dene is featured in the mirror arrangement, prominently at the top of the group portrait, in profile and full- frontal, in the Downey’s arrangement of mirrors, These multiple mirror portraits, sometimes invol- ving 5-fold compound images – front, back, sides, and three-quarter-views were popular in the last decades of the 19th century. The use of the dressing-table mirror adds symmetry, and bonus left and right profiles of Dorothy Dene.
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