A Brief Look at Mirrors - Much More Than Meets the Eye...

Sometimes technology advances the world in ways few people might have expected. Cyrus McCormick’s mechanical reaper freed up 85% of the population to do things other than work on farms. The mobile phone laid the foundation for everything from Uber to Tinder and myriad apps in between. In the art world it was the mirror that enabled something we are all familiar with today… the self portrait. While we might have known what Rembrandt or Van Gogh looked like without their self portraits, the fact that we actually have them gives us a much better insight into the souls of both men, and countless others. And it was mirrors that made them possible.

Basically, mirrors are spectacular things. Whether a simple rectangle you buy at Target for the back of your bathroom door or the embellished Louis XIV style giant you picked up as the centerpiece of your dining room wall, mirrors can be both functional and beautiful.

While today most of us take them for granted, the reality is, mirrors didn’t exist through most of human history, and for much of the time they have, we probably wouldn’t recognize them as mirrors at all! Indeed, one of the first mirrors in literature was not a mirror at all, but a pool of water. In Greek mythology Narcissus was a hunter known for his beauty. Tired of his boorish behavior towards those who loved him, his father, the river god Cephissus, lured Narcissus to gaze into a pool where his eyes set upon an extraordinary beauty.  Not realizing it was simply a reflection of himself, Narcissus fell in love with the image… Unable to pull himself away from his love, Narcissus drowned…

History’s first mirrors were made some 8,000 years ago out of polished obsidian, a naturally occurring glass that occurs when lava flowing from a volcano rapidly cools.

Later in much of the ancient world mirrors were made from highly polished metals such as copper, bronze, and gold. Given their materials, these mirrors were quite heavy and generally small and their reflections were not nearly as clear as found in modern mirrors. They were however quite useful for directing light into buildings or on occasion into the eyes of foreign armies. It’s even said that in 212 BC Archimedes used a set of mirrors to set fire to Roman ships attacking Syracuse.

Building on the 9th - 10th Century Syrian & Cyprian discovery of how to make clear glass, the modern mirror finds its origins in Europe’s Middle Ages. The challenge of mirrors was the ability to adhere molten metal to the glass without shattering it. The Florentines were the first to develop a technique for effectively doing so. Later the Venetians, with their spectacular glass skills would take over the mirror trade and would dominate the marketplace for a century. The Venetian secrets were extraordinarily valuable and craftsmen who sought to take their skills elsewhere often found it a short lived endeavor. When France’s Louis XIV convinced a group of Venetian artisans to share their secrets with France, Venice’s Council of Ten had them assassinated in Paris in 1667.

But by then the secret was out and a year later a French company, Compagnie du Noyer (today it’s called Saint-Gobain) was commissioned by Louis XIV to put the Venetian secrets to work in creating the mirrors for Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors.

As the King's extraordinary efforts might suggest, in the late 17th century mirrors were largely the provenance of the rich due to their high costs. In the early 18th century however the techniques for making mirrors had spread far beyond Venice and Paris and as a result mirrors became far more common among the non wealthy. In response to this extraordinary growth in the mirror marketplace, a wide variety of embellishments such as paint, gilding and carving found their ways into and onto mirrors, providing the wealthy with new ways to differentiate their objets d'art.

From solar power reflectors to the facades of 50 story skyscrapers to backdrops for far too many selfies, mirrors today remain a mainstay of modern life that we often take for granted… at least in the west:

Angie and Hugh were on a trip to Ghana when an older native gentleman struck up a conversation with them. Angie asked permission to take his picture, which he was happy to give. Once taken, she shared with him the picture on her camera’s digital screen. The man began to howl and laugh as he touched his face and hair. Apparently he hadn’t seen a mirror in many years and he was surprised to discover that his beard and hair had grown gray!

As objets d'art, mirrors are rarely taken for granted, and thankfully we are fortunate that's an area in which we have much experience. Below are some of our most fascinating mirrors… and a few that we only wish were ours!

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A Gorgeous Round Custom Made Eglomisé Sunburst American Mirror.

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A Greek Key American Wooden Mirror from the Early 20th Century with Antiqued Glass.

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A Pair of 19th Century French Trumeaux Mirrors with Eglomisé Shells

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The Hall of Mirrors in the Château of Versailles.

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Two Stunning Large Size Blue Glass Trumeau Mirrors Ornate With Eglomisé Arrows.

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Italian Mid 19th Century Gilded Sunburst Mirror.

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19th Century French Gilded Rectangular Mirror Adorned with Beautifully Carved Flower Urn and Pine Cones at the Crest.

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Ancient Egyptian bronze mirror decorated with two falcons in the collection of the British Museum.

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Italian 20th Century Gold and Silver Gilt Mirror with Richly Carved Wood with Old Mirror.

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Pair of Italian Early 20th Century Gilded Richly Carved Mirrors w/ Flower Urns Carving at the Top.

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Pair of Painted and Gilded Swedish Mirrors from the Early 20th Century. Were used in The Hunger Games Movies, in Katniss' Victor's House.

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The four story Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by architect Farshid Moussavi

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Italian Early 20th Century Venetian Mirror with Original Glass with Etched Details 

and Lovely Crown.

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Modern, Whimsical Mirror Painted with Gold and Silver Gesso.

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The "Verona" Venetian Style Mirror

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A Roman Silver mirror discovered in the ruins of an ancient villa at Boscoreale, near Pompeii, in southern Italy.  It is part of what's called The Boscoreale Treasure and most pieces are in the Louvre and the British Museum.  

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The "Octagonal" Venetian Style Mirror.

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Very Large 18th Century Italian Carved And Painted Mirror, Flanked by Two Fluted Pilasters Surmounted by Voluted Capitals. Profiled Molding. New Antiqued Glass.

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American Hand-Carved Painted Wood Mirror from the 20th Century.

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French Window Frame Painted Wood Palladium Mirror. Mid 20th Century (Circa 1930)

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Chicago’s Cloud Gate sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor

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