In the early years after its foundation in 1857, the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington pursued its policy of acquisition with a vigorously catholic taste. Since then its scope has become gradually limited to exclude work of the pre-Christian era, but in addition to the original purchases of Greek vases, the accession of large miscellaneous collections containing antiquities has contributed to what is now an excellent group of Greek and Roman objects. Important Greek vases were included in the big collection of modern European ceramics transferred in 1901 from the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street, and in 1910 the late George Salting bequeathed his entire collection, other than paintings, to the Victoria and Albert Museum. His good taste in every other direction was sufficient guarantee that the Greek civilisations should be represented by work of more than average merit. Unfortunately, Salting kept few records concerning the provenance of his acquisitions, and so one of the finest Etruscan engraved mirrors in existence came to the Museum without a past history.