What is an overmantel mirror?

One made to sit above a fireplace. They tend to be wide rather than tall, often with an arched or shaped top, and the usual build is carved wood and gesso, gilded. It's the most-named specific type in the category, accounting for roughly a fifth of listings and the bulk of the upper range.

Why do listings spell overmantel two ways?

Both spellings are in ordinary dealer use. 'Overmantle' appears in around 635 titles on Sellingantiques and 'overmantel' in another 193. Searching only one of them leaves about a quarter of them out of your results.

How old are most antique wall mirrors for sale?

The dated field spans 1700 to 1960. A quarter of titles say '19th', and 'Victorian' and 'Regency' are used the same broad way. After those, the busiest decade buckets are the 1900s, 1880s, 1920s, 1860s, 1870s and 1910s. Treat any of them as the dealer's estimate of period rather than a documented year.

Are wall mirrors usually signed or attributed?

Rarely. Only one maker name clears three dealers across the whole archive, which tells you most wall mirrors reach the market unattributed. What carries the description instead is period, frame material and shape.

What is a convex mirror?

A domed circular plate that reflects a whole room in miniature. Around 140 titles name the form, and it sits mainly with Georgian and Regency listings. Convex mirrors also turn up in pairs, and pairs are among the highest-priced entries in the archive.

Do unusual wall mirrors come up?

They do. The frame vocabulary alone runs to ebonised, silvered, painted, faux bamboo, faux bois, micromosaic, barbola, copper repoussé and tortoiseshell. Single oddities in the archive include a cork tramp-art frame, a carousel mirror, an early twentieth-century fairground mirror, a marble mirror and a cast-iron overmantel. Origins stretch to Spanish Colonial, Syrian, Swedish and Indian work.