Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 32.3 (2002) 519-542

The Technology of Reflection:
Renaissance Mirrors of Steel and Glass

Rayna Kalas
Portland State University
Portland, Oregon

In 1576, just a few years after the newly invented crystal glass pocket mirror was first available as a novelty import in England, George Gascoigne published a verse satire conspicuously titled The Steele Glas. The poem is an estates satire for the sixteenth century and as such levels its invective on all of society. Yet as its title indicates, the poem orchestrates its censure around a single paradigmatic object, the crystal glass mirror. In everything from its manufacture to its exchange to its use, the crystal glass mirror signals social and material changes that contravene the modes of production and signification that Gascoigne identifies with the traditional steel glass.

The crystal glass mirrors that Gascoigne bemoans were not the first mirrors made from glass, but they were the first that rivaled steel "glasses" made entirely of alloyed metal. Convex glass mirrors had been produced in Germany and Holland and exported to England as early as the fourteenth century. These convex or pennyware mirrors were made from forest glass—a thick and slightly greenish-tinted glass—that was blown into globes and lined with lead. Pennyware mirrors needed no maintenance, whereas steel mirrors, because they oxidize with exposure to air, required regular polishing. ¹ But the convex surface of the mirror did considerably distort the proportions of its reflection. Although convex mirrors were relatively inexpensive, the majority of mirrors imported and sold in England, well into the sixteenth century, were steel and silver mirrors. Before the introduction of the crystal glass mirror, high quality steel glasses seem to have been preferred over convex glass mirrors. ²

The crystal glass mirror was the product of two distinct innovations: a perfectly clear glass and a light metal tain. In 1500, Flemish mirror makers developed a new process for silvering the glass of convex mirrors, using an alloy of quicksilver and tin rather than lead. The new tain of quicksilver [End Page 519] and tin made for a lighter mirror, both in its weight and in the brightness of its reflection. The practice was picked up by Venetian glassmakers who used the process to silver pieces of cristallo. Cristalloglass, an absolutely colorless transparent glass, was itself a recent innovation: fifteenth-century Venetian glassmakers discovered that the addition of barilla soda yielded a molten glass batch that could be blown very thin. ³ Cristallo was used primarily for the production of delicate and ornate tableware, but it also proved an ideal recipe for sheet glass. ⁴ When blown into a cylinder that was then cut open and laid flat to harden, cristallooffered a thin, clear, and flat surface for silvering. ⁵ This silvered crystal glass, thin and light enough to be fashioned into portable mirrors, reflected a clear, undistorted image and never needed polishing. By 1570, crystal mirrors were being produced in Venice, Antwerp, and Rouen and imported by goldsmiths into England. ⁶

The new crystal mirrors were both wildly popular and widely sanctioned. Crystal pocket mirrors were comparatively expensive items and were frequently worn tied to the waist like jewels. ⁷ The French moralist Jean des Caurres railing against the practice of wearing mirrors at the girdle, seems most offended by the fact that they are even worn in church.

O Dieu! helas, en quel malheureux regne sommes nous tombez? de voir une telle deprauité sur la terre que nous voyons, iusques à porter en l'Eglise les mirouers de macule pendans sur le ventre. Qu'on lise toutes les histoires diuines, humaines, & profanes, il ne se trouvera point, que les impudiques & meretrices les ayant iamais portez en public, iusques à ceiourd'huy, que le diable est dechainé par la France: ce qui est encore plus detestable deuant Dieu & deuant les hommes, que toutes les autres abominations. Et combien qu'il n'y ait que les Courtisans, & Demoiselles masquees, qui en vsent, si est ce qu'auec le temps n...