Sun Mirror

With a vast inventory of beautiful furniture at 1stDibs, we’ve got just the sun mirror you’re looking for. A sun mirror — often made from glass, mirror and wood — can elevate any home. There are 514 variations of the antique or vintage sun mirror you’re looking for, while we also have 42 modern editions of this piece to choose from as well. Whether you’re looking for an older or newer sun mirror, there are earlier versions available from the 18th Century and newer variations made as recently as the 21st Century. A sun mirror is a generally popular piece of furniture, but those created in mid-century modern, Hollywood Regency and modern styles are sought with frequency. A well-made sun mirror has long been a part of the offerings for many furniture designers and manufacturers, but those produced by Chaty Vallauris, Line Vautrin and Deknudt are consistently popular.

Prices for a sun mirror start at $0 and top out at $1,200,000 with the average selling for $1,789.

The road from early innovations in reflective glass to the alluring antique and vintage mirrors in trendy modern interiors has been a long one but we’re reminded of the journey everywhere we look.

In many respects, wall mirrors, floor mirrors and full-length mirrors are to interior design what jeans are to dressing. Exceedingly versatile. Universally flattering. Unobtrusively elegant. And while all mirrors are not created equal, even in their most elaborate incarnation, they're still the heavy lifters of interior design, visually enlarging and illuminating any space. 

We’ve come a great distance from the polished stone that served as mirrors in Central America thousands of years ago or the copper mirrors of Mesopotamia before that. Today’s coveted glass Venetian mirrors, which should be cleaned with a solution of white vinegar and water, were likely produced in Italy beginning in the 1500s, while antique mirrors originating during the 19th century can add the rustic farmhouse feel to your mudroom that you didn’t know you needed.

By the early 20th century, experiments with various alloys allowed for mirrors to be made inexpensively. The geometric shapes and beveled edges that characterize mirrors crafted in the Art Deco style of the 1920s can bring pizzazz to your entryway, while an ornate LaBarge mirror made in the Hollywood Regency style makes a statement in any bedroom. Friedman Brothers is a particularly popular manufacturer known for decorative round and rectangular framed mirrors designed in the Rococo, Louis XVI and other styles, including dramatic wall mirrors framed in gold faux bamboo that bear the hallmarks of Asian design. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, mid-century modernism continues to influence the design of contemporary mirrors. Today’s simple yet chic mantel mirror frames, for example, often neutral in color, owe to the understated mirror designs introduced in the postwar era.

Sculptor and furniture maker Paul Evans had been making collage-style cabinets since at least the late 1950s when he designed his Patchwork mirror — part of a series that yielded expressive works of combined brass, copper and pewter — for Directional Furniture during the mid-1960s. Several books celebrating Evans’s work were published beginning in the early 2000s, as his unconventional furniture has been enjoying a moment not unlike the resurgence that the Ultrafragola mirror is seeing. Designed by the Memphis Group’s Ettore Sottsass in 1970, the Ultrafragola mirror, in all its sensuous acrylic splendor, has become somewhat of a star thanks to much-lauded appearances in shelter magazines and on social media.

On 1stDibs, we have a broad selection of vintage and antique mirrors and tips on how to style your contemporary mirror too.