On Reflection: Thoughts on the Mirror

Today Decorati Partner and guest blogger James Duncan, author of “A Well Traveled Aesthetic” maps the historical peaks and troughs of an essential design element- the mirror.

Representations of the Greek god Narcissus conventionally show him gazing at himself in a reflecting pool, the first mirror (above).

The history of the mirror is a fascinating story of an object which has gone from being extraordinarily precious to absolutely ordinary. At times laws were even set up to govern who could own one, how many, and of what size.

We know that the ancient Greeks had mirrors in the 5th century BC, humble ones made of polished bronze and more precious ones of silver or gold. These were either convex or concave so that they distorted the reflected image. Never more than five to eight inches in diameter, their sole purpose was for grooming. The Romans, who discovered how to create larger polished metal mirrors produced the first decorative wall mirrors. In fact, they built entirely mirrored rooms. It wasn’t until the 15th century, however that glass mirrors were developed. Although clearer than metal mirrors, they still distorted the image. By late in that century the glass-makers of the island of Murano in Venice began to produce the first mirrors that even approached the quality of the mirrors we have today. But they were unable to make mirrors more than forty square inches because of the limitations of their glass blowing techniques. Nonetheless, so valuable to the Republic were the skilled Murano mirror-makers that they there were prosecuted for treason if they attempted to go abroad to work!

Up through the 18th century glass mirrors remained very costly. So ordinary people continued to use small metal mirrors. In fact, in the early 16th century a Murano mirror in a silver frame sold for nearly three times the cost of a painting by Raphael.

With improved techniques of glassmaking the cost of mirrors declined sufficiently so that during the 17th century wealthy people in France began to decorate their public rooms with mirrors. Typically, during this period mirrors were placed across from windows in order to lighten dark rooms. This trend reached its apogee with the construction of Louis XIV’s Hall of Mirrors at Versailles in 1684. Seventeen mirrors each composed of eighteen pieces of glass reflected the view out of seventeen matching windows during the day, and magnified the play of candlelight and gilt at night.

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But limitations on the size of mirrors changed at the beginning of the 18th century when the first cast mirrors were made at Saint Gobain in France. People were astonished when they first saw a single piece of mirrored glass seven feet by four feet. The discovery of how to cast glass moved the center of mirror production from Venice to France in a stroke. And just as the Venetian Republic had tried to protect its expertise in glass blowing, so now the French tried valiantly, although unsuccessfully, to protect the secret of casting glass. But again the new large mirrors were extremely expensive due to a more than fifty percent breakage rate during manufacture. They were also very unstable as the mercury-silvered backing on the glass (the tain) was susceptible to damp — so much so, that, throughout the 18th century mirrors were never found in entrance halls of houses! By the early 19th century the tain had been stabilised. And so people have placed mirrors in their entrance halls ever since.

In the 18th century the use of mirrors as decorative items expanded greatly. They were embedded in wardrobes and it was at this time that the mirrored dressing table was invented. As the price of mirrors declined slightly, people could fill their houses with them, and they did! Now, not only were mirrors placed opposite windows to capture light, they were used elsewhere in houses as well. In particular, the craze for over mantel mirrors swept Paris and precious paintings were removed to be replaced by mirrors in painted, gilded, or tortoise shell frames. So enamoured did people become of mirrors that the value of paintings and fine tapestries nearly collapsed.

In some places the craze for mirrors among the wealthy became a cause for official concern. For example, the Republic of Geneva passed a law prohibiting citizens from having more than one mirror per room or having any larger than thirty two inches in height. While by the end of the 18th century, small mirrors were widespread throughout the population (it is estimated that two thirds of the population of Paris had one), large mirrors were still very costly and continued to be a mark of status.

During the 19th century, the industrial revolution ushered in technological changes that greatly reduced the cost of large mirrors. For the first time large glass mirrors became accessible to people of modest means. The predictable result was to immediately decrease the status value of mirrors for elites. For the latter, mirrors became functional, commonplace items and so the wealthy returned to their pre-18th century use of paintings.

By the 20th century mirrors had dropped in price yet again. Thus they became an ordinary object even for people of modest means. And this is where we remain today. We see mirrors now as functional for reflecting our image, capturing light or reflecting our surroundings. Mirrors themselves are no longer precious. When they are highly valued, it is because of the beauty of the frames that we surround them with or the fine furniture we cover in them.