What is a convex Regency mirror?

A circular plate curving outward in a gilt frame, often called a bullseye. It is the most common single form in the category, in about a fifth of listings. Many carry an eagle surmount, and some are fitted with candle arms, which makes them girandoles. Pairs of them recur, and they sit above the single equivalents.

Overmantel or overmantle: which is right?

Both spellings run through the archive in near-equal numbers, 156 titles one way and 139 the other, with another 34 splitting it as over mantle. The form is the same either way: a wide mirror for the wall above a chimneypiece, frequently divided into two or three plates by columns or pilasters.

Are all Regency mirrors from the Regency period?

No. The word in a title often describes taste rather than date of making. Only 249 of the 1,377 listings carry a clean year, and those run from 1800 to 1960. Dates cluster early, but there is a visible later group in the 1880s, 1890s, 1900s and 1920s. Titles reading Regency style, Regency design or Regency revival belong to that tail.

Which timbers were used for dressing mirrors?

Mahogany dominates, in 229 titles, most often as a cheval or as a small dressing or toilet glass on a drawered box base. Rosewood appears in a smaller group. Gilded frames outnumber timber ones across the category as a whole, but the free-standing and swing mirrors are largely a timber branch.

Do these mirrors carry maker's names?

Rarely. One name recurs across the whole archive, Gillows, from four dealers, so this is effectively an anonymous trade. Where it does appear it comes as an attribution or a stamp noted in the title, and it is the exception rather than a pattern.

How many turn up on Sellingantiques each year?

Around 137 are listed in a year, and 229 different dealers have handled one, which makes this a form almost every general furniture dealer touches at some point. Alongside the four standard forms, the archive holds one-offs: a double-sided hand mirror, a mirrored corner shelf, a shop's retail dressing mirror, a robing mirror called a Psyche, and a quatrefoil glass.

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Regency Mirrors

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Wall and dressing glasses in the Regency taste, framed in gilded wood and gesso or in figured mahogany, made for the pier between windows, the space above a chimneypiece, or the bedroom floor.