A Hole in the Mirror--Part of the History of Holes series

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post in the History of Holes series

While looking through D. Guilmard's La Connaissance des Styles de l'Ornementation (published around 1860)--a work that is a sort of early clip-art assembly of aspects of bits and details of historical ornamentation from the Gothic to Louis XVI-- I found several engravings of mirrors with some unusual detail.  For some reason the Renaissance mirrors nearly all had a small white dot--a hole--in the center of their jet-black mirror surface.  I imagine that this was a simple printing error, but I liked the idea of this spec of a mistake right in the middle of a dark field, in effect making a hole in the mirror, looking something like a light leak. It makes for an intriguing series of images.

Which is a detail (about 2x2 inches in life) from the full sheet, below

Comments

[AC_Swift]

Coincidentally I just spent some time examining drawings of circular moldings at the Louvre, and they all had holes in the middle from the compass used to make the circles.

Some of the more complicated designs had 6-10 tiny holes in the middle -- I'm not sure why they didn't use cardboard to protect the drawings.

I'm guessing that the white spot is an artifact left over from the holes.

In other news, I love your posts and read your RSS feed religiously.