The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1910-03-03
HISTORY OF THE MIRROR.
lTFe,veed Early in History-its In.
ventor Unknown.

N"a.eycr the orig n, IT is knogn at
least that m rrors arrived very early
IN t'o worlds history. Cicero traced
tem to Esculapius, that mythical
m'dico Of ages ago, and antiquarians
nave 1t that we owe them to the
a'cne age. In Japan the shrine of
lee, where the first mirror was given
To- he creator Of the empire of Japan
by sun goddess is as sacred spot
to every loyal citizen of the land OF
the Chrys1uthemum as Mecca is to
tho Nohammcdau.
The records of the ancients tell of
tbcn. The Perus,ans had them of
silver, copper brass and polished
llIaN stone; in Greece's buried ruins
are .eynd pieces of bronze thinly
cc1,.i v.,h silver; in Egypt tombs
are found relies Of crude mirrors. and
earl, Roman writer's say that It was
lH, aim and ambition Of every woman
to possess a silver mirror.
GGss ones were not known so
widely, but even these were found
l.JHS carly peoples, and in the Ro-
mal Gaelic, Thracian, Byzantine or
egyptian tomhs mirrors of glass in
ya'!.d d Minds have been discovered.
One Of the earliest forms of these was
> t,oyn.glasa bubble cut in n curve
Ire a watch crystal, with melted laau
poured in the she'll There were some
# these with plaster pent1goall
fr'l"a with a triangular piece cut TN.
dem ath which was a lead line of
s...3 -"".9u@aed b. f"n~-. Ms ct
s,.ss set IN plaster for 1r1cn-..'
The chief objection to these lre1
mirrors-ard some of them are use
today in Italy and the Orien.--i5 tia'
they are affected by dampncs3.
The fifteenth century brought fa3'i
the mirrors as we understand them
today. II was then that in Ven c.
the fact was discovered that . n
glass surface backed by an amalclm
of mercury and tin would reflect wrll;
and these quicksilver mirrors hell
sway until the nineteenth century.
when in 1856 Pe;tejean patented the
present process of silver mirrors
which reflect 25 por cent NOR, light
than those before known.
Artistic effect has characterized
mirrors from the Il st. Tho first
beautiful styles were from Nen'cn.
cni the fair danes there We'd with
each ether as to which could carry
at her grdle the most handsomely
adorned little glass. From France
came most of the ideas OF the Mirror
makers, and the work on the French
mirrors from the first was so exquisite
that il stands uneXceled in this art.
In the reign of Louis XIV to the time
of Louis XVI, the workmanship was
such that it has never been equaled
both for beauty of design and cOmDf-
nation of color. In this era in France
it was the royal taste for mirrors to
be used as part of the paneling of the
walls, with richly carved wood frames,
glljed or highly colored. Famous
artists of the time contributed to the
beauty of these mirrured walls, by
painting pictures at the top. Boucher,
Vatican. Lencret, Pa'er and Fran
gonaarl have all appeared in the
lists Of the painters whose work is
on some of these frames.
The English can claim the distinc-
ticn of introducing detached mirrors
and those above bureaus and dress
ing tables, and it was in the eight
eenth century that these first ap-
peaged But no nation has been
vn'ucr than the French, and during
the empire there. cabinetmakers and
builders made use of mirrors in every
possible spot. The gay beau or belle
vno was carried in the sedan chair
of the time had the pleasure of view
inE his or her own cOuntenance in
the close surrounding walls of the
clair
The modern manufacturing possi-
bites have made it comparatively
easy today to reproduce some of these
old ime beautiful styles, and today
many a housewife proudly displays an
ancestral looking glass that perhaps
cannot boast of more than three
year record. There are close copies
of the old Colonial period, particularly
the triple IN rror with the severely
simple style, a relief from the tawdry
ornateness of the work of a few
decades ago There are reproductions
of the old French and Italian art with
penal pictures of Aurora or prints
of old-tome bellies and beaux