The Home Beautiful: A Chippendale Mirror, 1762-5

Chippendale Mirror and Girandole, 1762-5
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This exceptional Eighteenth Century mirror was designed to serve double-duty as a girandole or a sconce with three arms to support candles and reflect the candlelight to increase the light in a room.

A work of Chippendale (1718-1779), dating between 1762 and 1765, this mirror boasts an elaborately-carved Rococo frame adorned with flowers, leaves, bull-rushes and birds (probably cranes). The carved pine frame was gilded creating a surface which, when combined with the brass fittings and mirror, also served to reflect light.

Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779) engaged a team of engravers to prepare his designs, so its difficult to say whose specific hand created this piece.  The glass—as with most large sheets of glass at the time—was most surely imported from France.  This complex design incorporates both smaller and larger sections of glass. The smaller sections were crafted from off-cuts from the larger pieces—economically utilizing as much of this expensive material as possible.

Goal for the Day: Look in the Mirror and Like What You See

No one is a harsher critic than ourselves. We all look in the mirror and dissect our reflections. We see the scars, the flaws, the asymmetry. We compare ourselves against the unrealistic images that look back at us from magazines, films, television and billboards. Men and women alike strive to emulate an ideal. However, no one is ideal. No human being is without flaw. We cannot compete with computer-manipulated images of our own kind. No person is perfect, but every person is beautiful in unique and distinct ways.


Today, when you look in the mirror, focus on what you like about yourself. And, when you go out into the world today, you remember that the face you present is a wonderful and beautiful one.

Our reflections are not limited to what we carry on the outside. Each of us is composed of both an interior and an exterior light. Pause to remember the good in your heart and your capacity for kindness. What you’ll see staring back is a remarkable creature capable of incredible acts. Know, with each step you take today, that you are a person of substance.