Early English looking glasses

The looking glass (it only started being called a “mirror” in the 19^th century) began when metal-backed glass replaced polished metal as the medium of choice for those who could afford the new technology. This was in the 17^th century.

English makers of looking glasses were helped in the 1620s by a temporary import ban on foreign glass. This encouraged home production, especially by Sir Robert Mansell who obtained a patent for making looking glasses and was soon employing 500 workers at his Southwark factory. He later expanded to other glasshouses in England, Wales and Scotland. However, the quality of these very early pieces, made from blown glass, was poor and very few have survived.

It was not until the 1660s that plate glass became widely available for looking glass production, with English makers again being helped by an import ban. A patent was granted in 1664 that enabled George Villiers, 2^nd Duke of Buckingham, to establish a glasshouse at Vauxhall that made looking glasses of considerably greater size and quality than those produced earlier in the century. These were up to three feet in length and were intended to be more than just for toilet use.

Such looking glasses were very expensive and were luxury items that could only be afforded by the wealthier members of society. As such, it was common to emphasise their importance, and that of their purchasers, by surrounding them with ornate frames. Quite often the actual area of glass in a looking glass was not all that great, but the frame could make it appear to be much larger.

Some early examples of looking glasses from the Stuart period had frames composed of “stump work”, which was relief needlework, or carved wood. The famous woodcarver Grinling Gibbons, who is better known for his work on choir stalls and rood screens in Wren’s churches, turned his hand to carving looking glass frames. Clearly anyone who was prepared to pay for Grinling Gibbons to carve a frame for such a utilitarian item as a looking glass had not only to value the item greatly but must also have been seriously rich.

During the early 18^th century the fashion was for the side frames of looking glasses to be much narrower, but for elaborate crests to surmount them. This made it possible for looking glasses to be incorporated in bedroom and dressing room furniture as well as being hung on a wall.

Another trend was for mirrors to form part of the decoration of reception rooms, such as on the piers between windows, so that they would reflect daylight and candlelight and also create the illusion of a room being much larger than it was. They were also hung above chimney-pieces and incorporated in cabinet doors, again with the aim of reflecting light rather than to provide a means of self-admiration.

Because of the limitations of size on early plate glass, one practice was to increase the size of a framed looking glass by placing two or more sheets together and either attempting to disguise the join or covering it with a narrow gilt or wood strip that might itself be carved or decorated. Another technique was to incorporate a painted landscape or seascape alongside a mirrored surface within the same frame.

Examples of early English looking glasses can be seen at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum as well as in great houses including Hampton Court Palace, Windsor Castle, Burghley House, and Penshurst Place.

© John Welford