The three panels at the top are painted upon glass, the middle panel having one of the mortuary subjects which were so popular with our ancestors, of a monument with a willow carefully trained to weep over the urn, and a despondent female disconsolately gazing upon the ground. The glass may have been ordered by the grief-stricken lady who is depicted in the panel, as evidence that while the looking-glass was a tribute to the vanities of life, the doleful scene in the panel above the glass should serve as a reminder that such vanities are fleeting.
Illus. 385.—Looking-glass, 1790-1800.
The cornice and the capitals of the pillars are very elaborate, and around the top runs a fluted band wound with garlands similar to the pillars in Illustration [384].
Illustration [386] shows a looking-glass in a frame the main portion of which is of salmon-colored marble, which is glued or cemented to the wood in small thin pieces. Upon the edges of this marble is a narrow gilt moulding, and the ornaments at the top and bottom are of gilt, the fine scrolls at the top being made of wire. Such looking-glasses have been found in New England, chiefly in Massachusetts, and the majority that have been traced have Marblehead as their starting-point in this country. In Marblehead they are known as “Bilboa glasses,” and the story of the old wives of Marblehead is that these glasses were all brought home by sailors who had been to Bilboa, “In the bay of Biscay, oh,” and that the looking-glasses were either given as presents to wives or sweethearts, or more prosaically exchanged for a cargo of Marblehead dried fish. The frames, however, would appear to be of Italian origin, if one wishes to be accurate, and discard the picturesque Marblehead legend.
The looking-glass in Illustration [386] is now in the Boston Art Museum. The “Bilboa glasses” are nearly all similar to this in design, with marble pillars at the side and gilt ornaments at the top and bottom. The glass is the original one with the shallow, wide bevel, and the frame, exclusive of the ornaments at the top and bottom, measures twenty-five inches in height and eighteen in width.
Illus. 386.—“Bilboa Glass,” 1770-1780.