A "Perfect" Image of the Self

Object: Looking glass or mirror, ca. 1760-1770

Accession #: 1959.0009

Mirrors as far back as 6000 B.C.E. were made of obsidian, a naturally occurring black glass. These mirrors were “honed carefully into a flat, polished surface, it provided a dark and haunting vision of the self.”  Since the Renaissance, large flat mirrors became a part of the “indoor landscape” of American and European upper class homes.  Pocket mirrors became widespread throughout all classes.  This English George II Parcel-Gilt Mahogany Chippendale looking glass, or mirror, in Wilton’s collection has a broken pediment centering a gilded phoenix and is framed with egg-and-dart border.  It is much like one that might have graced the walls of one of the rooms of the Randolph family.

During the sixteenth century, inhabitants of the Venetian island Murano were making mirrors by applying an amalgam of mercury and tin to the back of a smooth sheet of glass.  Hundreds of years passed with other countries trying to imitate the Venetian process before Louis XIV convinced a group of Venetian glass makers to give up their secrets.  They were assassinated before the French could learn everything they needed to know.  However, what the French were able to learn resulted in Louis XIV’s famous Hall of Mirrors, built at Versailles in 1682.  The first glass plates for mirrors in England were made in 1673 at Lambeth, a district in Central London.

By the 1700s, the process reached beyond Venice, resulting "in such an abundance of metallically backed glass that mirrors became mere light catchers to enliven the household, prized as evidence of social standing.”  There also arose a difficulty in making the glass “even and flat” due to the silvering which was done through the mercury process.  The “heavy quicksilver” did not easily stay on the glass surface but would “fall off in patches.”  Over time, many of the mirrors made with this original silvering process appear to be discolored and opague.

From the introduction of the glass mirror, the industry and art of making frames for these “looking glasses” sprung up.  Cabinet makers were able to use their skills in a different way and most frames began to be made of wood.  This particular mirror in Wilton’s collection is a Chippendale mirror.  Chippendale mirrors range from 1750-1780 and a typical one has, “the base cut in graceful curves, while a broken arch, on which perched a gilded eagle with outspread wings surmounted the top.”  This mirror has a gilded phoenix which was a commonplace element in the English classical vocabulary.

Most mirrors were imported to the colonies from other countries, such as England or France, whereas in London looking glasses could be found in any and every room.  The Randolphs undoubtedly followed this trend and could afford to do so.  The May 5, 1815 inventory listed the house as having “1 large looking glass” in the Dining Room and “1 Looking Glass” in the Parlor as well as a “1 small looking glass” in the Master bedchamber.  Not surprised by the lasting appeal a mirror has, one historian expressed how “the flat mirror engenders a correspondingly ‘perfect’ image of the self, one that is transparent and knowable, stable and exterior, a vision not filtered through the perceptions of others.”  Mirrors continue to find their way into people’s homes today for this reason as well as their aesthetic appeal. The mirror possesses the ability of opening up and brightening a room with the depth and light it reflects. The Randolphs saw this and made elegant use of it at Wilton.

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