Mirrors/Miroirs

Mirrors
Glaces et miroirs

Société d'histoire In Memoriam, Manoir Mauvide-Genest

In the colonies, mirrors, mirror glass, and most frames required importation from France. The intendant Claude-Thomas Dupuy arrived in Québec with ninety-one pieces of mirror glass in 1726. What he intended to do with these is unclear, although it is possible that he intended to create a mirrored room in the intendant's palace like that Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Nearly all the pieces were measured, some over five feet in length and three in width; other smaller sheets were certainly destined to be framed. Dupuy's collection of mirrors was without a doubt the grandest ever assembled in New France, and all were confiscated to pay his many debts in 1728.

Mirrors performed both aesthetic and utilitarian functions in the French colonial home. Set within ornamental frames and incorporated into interior walls, mirror or plate glass reflected natural and artificial light while also creating an illusion of spatial depth. By night, these glaces glinted and glowed by candlelight. Usage of the term miroir is generally limited to small, handheld mirrors or dressing glasses known as miroirs de toilette, like the "miroir de toilette à cadre de bois verny" owned by Charles Tessier of Montréal in 1748.

In France, artisans known as miroitiers created mirrors by pouring molten glass onto iron plates that were then polished and “silvered” with mercury, a process that was less than perfect or safe for the craftsmen. Large sheets of plate glass were difficult to produce before technological breakthroughs were made in the late eighteenth century, and smaller pieces were often combined to form larger mirrors. The inherent fragility of mirror glass added to its expense.

Lacquered walnut frame with gilt details, France, mid-eighteenth century

Dupuy's mirror glass might have been set within the variety of giltwood, ebony, and lacquer frames part of the same state-sponsored seizure. The homes of merchant François-Étienne Cugnet in Montréal and officer-seigneur Jacques-Hugues Péan de Livaudière in Québec also boasted large mirrors, albeit in smaller quantities, in the 1730s and 1740s. These were set within carved wooden paneling. Although installations as elaborate as Cugnet's and Péan de Livaudière's were rare, wall mirrors set within giltwood frames appear frequently in colonial inventories.

The two videos below explain the complex process by which mirror or plate glass was created in Ancien Régime France.

Mirror in carved giltwood frame, French, early eighteenth century

Inventoried in 1701, the Québec home of René-Louis Chartier de Lotbinière included a wooden mirror covered in copper as well as a small, square-shaped dressing glass. Forty years later, the estate of Marie-Anne Sarrazin in Québec included a two and a half-foot giltwood mirror and a small mirror in a lacquered frame. Philippe de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil and governor-general of New France, owned five dressing glasses in addition to one large mirror bordered with additional glass in 1725. Probate records from the estate of Philippe Peiré, a bourgeois of Québec, include descriptions of a small giltwood mirror "à chapiteau," meaning an arched top, in addition to a small giltwood trumeau that was undoubtedly placed above a fireplace.

Across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, the plantation of Jean-Charles de Pradel, a royal military engineer and sieur de Lamaze, contained the most impressive collection of mirrors in French colonial Louisiana. Dubbed the château de Monplaisir, Pradel's house featured a large mirror over the mantelpiece or chimney glass that had cost 1000 livres in addition to four other mirrors used as pier glasses. The four pier glasses were set above four gilt console tables with marble tops. Described in a letter dated 1 March 1753, Pradel's chimney glass was in two pieces and surmounted by a painted scene. Including the carved giltwood frame, it stood nine feet high and five feet wide. Astonished at its perfect condition upon arrival in Louisiana, Pradel recorded the mirror's journey from Paris via La Rochelle. By November of the same year, Pradel placed an order for four more pier glasses.

The duchesse de Nevers, engraved by Antoine Trouvain, 1696

Société d'histoire In Memoriam, Manoir Mauvide-Genest

Pradel's was not the only plantation embellished by mirrors. Étienne Bosseron, a planter in Pointe Coupée, owned a "carved and gilt" mirror valued at 20 livres in 1754. Jean-Baptiste Prévost, owned a variety of mirrors when he died in 1769, the year that Spanish authority in Louisiana was successfully established. A French East Indies Company agent, Prévost owned two plantations near New Orleans. His first, just south of the city, contained a large giltwood mirror with a family crest and a chimney glass with enameled sconces for holding flowers in the salle, two large mirrors with a gilt frames and cornices and a third used as a pier glass in a side cabinet used by Madame Prévost, a mirror over the fireplace in another room, and various other small mirrors. Prévost's second plantation at Détour des Anglais (English Turn) boasted a two-piece pier glass in the salle.

Dressing glass with red lacquer frame, France, early to mid-eighteenth century

Société d'Histoire in Memoriam, Manoir Mauvide-Genest