Neoclassical Giallo Antico Marble & Gilt Wood Bilbao Mirror With Original Glass

An incredibly rare and beautiful Bilbao mirror. Typically, these mirrors were made of pink marble veneer adhered to wood and had slender columns with delicate gesso adornment, often with an urn or painting in the center. due to their fragility, very few survive today.

A fellow survivor can be found at the Minneapolis Museum of Art. Reputedly these mirrors were produced from 1780-1810 for export.

The mirror itself takes its name from the pink marble which has its origins in Bilbao, Spain, a seaport city in northern Spain near the Bay of Biscay.

Throughout the 1700's Bilbao mirrors were shipped to port towns along the eastern seaboard of the United States, most notably in New England.

It is widely assumed that these mirrors were made in Spain, however there is historic evidence that shows that large quantities of Bilbao marble was imported into Germany during the 18th century, and many mirrors were made in Hamburg, Germany, in the 1790’s, so it is quite possible that this mirror was made in Germany circa 1790 - 1800 using the imported Bilbao marble.

This mirror is particularly unusual in that the baroque frame crest is of a classical Grecian urn and foliage, rather than the wired floral crests which are most common on the surviving Bilbao mirrors, with fine marble columns topped with Corinthian capitals.

There are small areas of wear to the marble veneer, and age related patina. The original mirror plate is present and resplendently foxed. There are two small stoppers to the rear of the mirror (later additions) that keep the mirror proud of the wall, and it has had two modern hanging loops fitted to the back.

Height 71 cm x Width 35 cm x Depth 3 cm

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