January, 1906 AMERICAN 
A Girandole (1776-1780) in a Salem House 
treasure house of rare old furniture. This beautiful little 
Venetian mirror is not more than a foot and a half in height, 
and its gilt frame is surmounted by a cornice and gilt pine- 
apples and supported by claw legs. ‘The polished surface 
has reflected life on two continents, and if it could reveal 
the panorama of life which has passed before it for scores 
of years it would disclose many strange tales. 
The accumulated experience of the few people who have 
devoted themselves to a careful and detailed historic study 
of mirrors in this country all agree that mirrors are slighted. 
Much old furniture is enshrined in associations carefully 
recorded, but for some strange reason certainly not inherent 
—for weird tales and superstitions about mirrors have ap- 
peared in the folklore of every land—the owners of family 
mirrors are vague and indefinite about their traditions. A 
fragment of fact, a mere gleam of romance, is all that is 
available for the eager student or the imaginative inquirer. 
Previous to the Revolution the Colonists manufactured 
very little furniture, so that they were dependent upon 
England, Holland, Spain and France for their house furnish- 
ings. The somewhat commonplace position to which mirrors 
have degenerated to-day puts us to shame when we compare 
our modern work with the beautiful workmanship of the 
middle of the eighteenth century, when great architects de- 
signed furniture and famous sculptors and artists carved and 
painted articles for daily use. The famous old cabinet- 
makers who published their designs and treatises on furni- 
ture have also left plates and books on mirrors, such as 
Locke’s New Book. But mirrors do not reflect the style 
of the period quite as closely as most furniture, so that their 
dates are rather puzzling. 
The mirrors shown here were nearly all brought to Salem 
by merchant princes during the flood tide of her commercial 
glory and prosperity, just about the time of the Revolution 
and previous to the embargo caused by the War of 1812. 
That was in the halcyon days of Salem, before the great 
tide of East India trade had ebbed away, leaving Derby 
FLOM E'S 
AND GARDENS 33 
Street, then the court end of the town, stranded, its brown 
wharves given over to rats and the slow lap of the water 
among dull, green piles. 
Distinctive among these old mirrors is the Lafayette, or 
‘courting mirror,’’ owned by Mrs. Nathan Osgood, whose 
home is on Chestnut Street, and whose husband is descended 
from one Enos Briggs, a famous shipbuilder of old Salem. 
The courtly French general, Lafayette, made a notable visit 
to Salem in 1784, and the mirror commemorative of the 
Frenchman’s visit to this country contains a colored painting 
of the general surrounded by gilt scrollwork. According to 
a pretty and graceful custom of olden days, when gallantry 
was more spontaneous and lovers more sentimental in ex- 
pression than to-day, it was the usual thing for the ardent 
swain to present his sweetheart with one of these ‘ courting 
mirrors.” 
Another mirror hangs on the walls of the same mansion. 
This belongs to the last part of the eighteenth century, and 
is known as a “ Bilboa mirror.’ ‘These are seldom found 
in this country, save at historic Marblehead. ‘The tradition 
handed down by Salem grandmothers tells how the ships 
bound for Bilboa, on the Bay of Biscay, were wont to bring 
home these mirrors from that far-off land. . The keen 
observers may trace Italian origin, but the older story clings 
to the few mirrors of this type which are scattered here and 
there through New England. As is characteristic of all 
these mirrors, the columns on either side are of warm, yellow 
marble, fastened to some adhesive substance, in small strips, 
to the wood. The frame itself is gilt, and above the glass 
is a pediment with a broken arch, topped by an urn with lions’ 
heads at the upper corners.  A\ll the Bilboa glasses are 
similar to this in design. 
During the latter part of the eighteenth century mantel 
looking-glasses, divided into sections and extending the whoie 
‘ 
Venetian Looking-Glass in Mrs. N. B. Mansfield’s House 
Salem, Mass. 
