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Wall and Toilet Mirrors: American and English English and Early American Colonial Furniture History

 

The cost of glass, whether silvered or plain, was a formidable item of cost throughout the whole of the eighteenth century. Thus, when Thomas Chippendale undertook to make the great pier glasses at Kenwood, Hampstead, on the outskirts of London, for the Earl of Mansfield, the carved and gilded frames are priced at £38, whereas the glass costs £300. It must be remembered that money had more than five times its present-day purchasing value in 1768, but this only increases the figure for the glass in the same ratio. Chippendale, although a successful cabinetmaker, presumably of some financial standing, has to solicit the sum for this glass from the Earl in advance, and he enters into a bond to expend the money in the proper way, and this undertaking has to be endorsed by another cabinetmaker, William France, the obvious inference being that Thomas Chippendale's signature, by itself, was insufficient.

Plain transparent glass was proportionately costly, and one of the items in the expense was the risk of breakage in the manufacture. This danger was enhanced where the glass had to be shaped and worked with an interior bevel, and it was the custom, with large plates, to make them in two or more sections, joined to­gether with a butt-bevel. In France these large plates were seldom attempted, and the mirrors in Versailles, for example, are in many pieces, joined with a metal ribbing.

In the case of prints, of considerable value at the present day, it is difficult to imagine that, at the time when they were new, the glass must have been more costly than the print itself, but those which were framed, at the time when they were issued, nearly always had the broad margins pared down. It is only the prints which were either published in a hook, or kept in a portfolio, which have survived to our day with their margins intact.

The greatest difficulty was experienced, in the eighteenth century, in making the glass even and flat, and as the silvering was done by the mercury process, the heavy quicksilver seldom adhered properly to the surface, and was liable to fall off in patches. This accounts for the discolored and opaque appearance of much of this early original silvering. Re-silvering, even by the "patent process" is seldom efficacious; the only method is to regrind the plate on its silvered side. Even then, this is better than replac­ing the plate with modern glass, as the old has a peculiar greenish­blue tinge which is characteristic and unmistakable, and has a charm which the modern glass does not possess.

Early American Colonial Furniture Early Glasses

THE early dressing glasses are nearly always of small size, and the cheval glass, of large area, comes into fashion only in the Sheraton period, when costs had become greatly reduced owing to improved processes of manufacture. Wall mirrors of early date, from the latter part of the seventeenth century onwards, even when of larger size, usually have the glass area quite small, being surrounded by broad margins of wood, plain, inlaid, or carved, or of needlepoint or stump-work. These "stump" mirrors of the late Stuart period are among the most characteristic examples of English and early American colonial furniture  extant, and as the art of the needle implies a greatly leisured female class, one would hardly expect to find any American examples of this period.

The early Georgian and early American colonial furniture wall mirrors, of mahogany or walnut, with carved and gilt surround and inside enrichment, were extensively copied in America, and so faithfully that it is often extremely difficult to distinguish between the work of the early American colonial furniture Eastern States and the English originals, especially when,, in the latter, the frame was surmounted by an eagle. These mirrors, both in England and America, were often made in balancing pairs, similar to the two examples shown here.

There is one distinguishing detail which may be pointed out with advantage. With the English mirror, the backboard was cut inside the framing, and beaded from behind, whereas, with the American, the usual custom was to make the backboard larger than the opening, and to nail it to the frame. The result was a space between the backboard and the silvered face of the glass, which, in preventing condensation or abrasion, was the better method, calculated to preserve the silvering for a greater length of time. Perhaps the American craftsmen learned by experience.

Early American Colonial Furniture Toilet Glasses and Dressing Tables

The dressing, or toilet glass, both in England and in America, was rather a small piece, until almost the close of the eighteenth century, a framed mirror, pivoted on standards fixed on a box plateau with drawers. Occasionally these standards were stretchered and placed on "cheval" feet, in the manner of a fire screen, the box and drawers being omitted. Of the former kind, rare examples can be found in walnut, of Queen Anne and early American colonial furniture days, the box plateau having a slant front similar to that on a bureau, and supported on the same pull-out slides. These early early American colonial furniture dressing glasses are very charming, the mirror framing having usually a delicately shaped head, and the glass a characteristically flat bevel. Toilet mirrors of any kind are conspicuously rare in the Chippendale period, but are plentiful in the styles of Hepplewhite and Sheraton. The Chippendale dressing table and early American colonial furniture was usually an enclosed piece, serving many purposes, with two boxed lids opening sideways, below which were powder and patch boxes and a hinged framed mirror with a strutted back, to support it at any angle. The same method was adopted for the fitting of the top drawer in a chest of drawers, of which type, examples are not uncommon.

During the last ten years of the eighteenth century, the complete dressing table, with an attached swing mirror, came into fashion, being copied in early American colonial furniture at a somewhat later date. In these pieces the fashion of the Sheraton school is carried right into that of the succeeding vogue, the so-called English Empire, without any serious modification of the former style. In these dressing tables only, the Sheraton style remains in favor almost throughout the whole of the nineteenth century. It is eminently suitable for pieces of this kind, which may account for the esteem in which it was held.