Perhaps the most useful and decorative of the old mirrors are those of 
the three-panel type to go over mantels 
Old Looking-glasses 
THE MIRROR’S EVOLUTION—COMPARATIVELY 
MODERN TYPES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS 
A very old mirror in a 
Salem collection 
Photographs by the author 
A splendid example of the 
Chippendale type 
T HE origin of the mirror is a secret which will probably remain 
forever shrouded in uncertainty, but its history, as far as 
it can be traced, is most interesting to the student of antiques. 
Few people at the present day realize how ancient an accessory 
the mirror is, yet it is a fact that rude reflectors, made to serve 
the same purpose as the modern looking-glass, were used in the 
countries of Southern Europe and Asia at least three hundred 
years before the commencement of the Christian Era. 
The earliest mirrors varied somewhat in shape and the material 
of which they were made, although metal of some sort was almost 
invariably used. According to historians, mirrors fashioned from 
a composite metal containing a large percentage of copper were 
known to the ancient Egyptians. Among the Chinese, small 
mirrors of polished iron and bronze are said to have been in use 
several centuries before Christ. Originally they seem to have 
been worn as ornaments, fastened to the girdle by means of a 
cord attached to a small knob or handle on the mirror. 
As civilization progressed, other methods of mirror making 
were discovered. Ancient historians mention the adaptation of 
silver for this purpose and, if we may believe the accounts given 
by Pliny, one of the important industries carried on at Rome 
during the days of the early emperors was the manufacture of 
these mirrors, which became extremely common. 
Slabs of polished stone inserted as wall panels and intended 
to reflect passing objects were also mentioned by the same writer. 
For these mirrors, obsidian, a dark stone resembling black glass, 
was frequently used, although there were various other stones 
which sometimes served the same purpose. It is thought that 
the use of obsidian may have suggested the idea of making mirrors 
of glass and that possibly the experiment was tried at the famous 
glass works of Sidon. 
Little seems to have been known of glass mirrors previous to 
the thirteenth century, however, and even by the writers of that 
day they were very rarely mentioned. During the next hundred 
years metal mirrors still remained popular, although a very few 
made of glass backed with lead were introduced into France. It 
was not until the sixteenth century that any marked advance had 
been made in mirror making, but at that time the Germans began 
to manufacture what were later known as ochsenaugen, or ox 
eyes. These were small mirrors cut from a blown glass globe, the 
inner surface of which had been coated while still hot with a 
certain metallic mixture. Their queer name was the more appro¬ 
priate because of their characteristic mounting on a circle of 
painted wood with a very wide margin around the edge. 
In the meantime the Venetians had discovered a method of 
coating plates of glass with an amalgam of tinfoil and mercury. 
The secret of this process was carefully guarded by the govern¬ 
ment and so great a crime was its disclosure considered that if a 
workman was suspected of having left the country with that 
intention his remaining relatives were immediately imprisoned 
and subsequently put to death in case he refused to return. So 
for over a century practically every plate-glass mirror in existence 
came from Italy. 
Still, in spite of all precautions, the secret eventually leaked 
out, and about the year 1670 the Venetian method of mirror 
making was introduced in Lambeth by an Englishman. As the 
labor of coating glass in this way proved very unhealthful for the 
workmen, on account of the fumes of the mercury, chemists both 
in England and on the Continent spent much time in experi¬ 
menting with various methods. Several processes were patented 
and used to some extent, but the mirrors thus produced were, as a 
rule, inferior to those made in the Venetian way. Accordingly 
the early amalgamation method, improved in some respects, but 
essentially the same, was most commonly used and is still followed 
at the present day. 
The introduction of glass mirrors naturally gave rise to a new 
industry, namely, the making of mirror frames. In this occupa¬ 
tion cabinetmakers found a new vent for their skill, since by far 
the larger number of frames were of wood. There were, of course, 
exceptions to this rule, and odd conceits, such as a frame of glass 
fitted together at the joints with gilt molding, were occasionally 
made. But the different styles were usually characteiistic of 
certain periods or designers, so that it is upon the frame rather 
than upon the glass itself that one must now rely to distinguish 
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