A convex mirror is a circular mirror whose glass bulges outwards, giving a wide-angled, slightly distorted and miniaturised reflection of a whole room. In British antiques the term is most closely associated with the gilded convex mirrors of the Regency period, which were among the most fashionable decorative accessories of their day.
Convex mirrors appear in Netherlandish paintings of the fifteenth century, but they became a major fashion in England from around 1800. The classic Regency example has a round giltwood and gesso frame with a reeded or ebonised inner slip and a cavetto moulding decorated with applied gilt balls, often surmounted by an eagle, sometimes with acanthus, dolphins or serpents at the base. Larger versions with candle branches are often called girandoles. They were valued not only for decoration but for reflecting candlelight and drawing the eye across a room. Many were made into the Victorian period and widely reproduced in the twentieth century. Buyers should look at the age of the glass and its silvering, the condition of the gilding and the originality of the cresting and balls, which were easily lost and often replaced. A good convex mirror suits a hall, staircase or drawing room.
