Mirrors Furniture

Old China had a way with windows. Someone, at some point, thought to put glass in one and hang it on the wall.

Mirrors come from China, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Japan, France, England and the United States, antique and contemporary. Chinese window-frame mirrors set glass into old elm lattice, so the reflection reads through geometry. Moroccan mirrors are inlaid with camel bone in fine patterns. Indian and Indonesian frames in teak and mahogany carry carving, marquetry or crackled paint. French and English mirrors of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, crescent and sun mirrors, polished steel and floor mirrors extend the range.

A mirror doubles light and space. In a narrow hall it opens the wall; in a dining room it catches the candles.

Vanity, thankfully, is optional.