"Witch" mirror – Paris – Charles X Era – First decades of the 1800s – Lacquered wood, original mirror plates.

Rattopennugo, with extreme satisfaction, is slowly emptying a Wunderkammer to which this antiquity could only belong.

The Wunderkammer is nothing other than (literally) a Chamber of Wonders: the nobles of the past got bored and created collections kept in these environments, collections whose sole purpose was to leave onlookers speechless. Very popular in European cohorts starting from the 15th century, collectors here used to preserve sets of objects extraordinary for their intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics.

Our Strega mirror comes from one of these Wunderkammers: Paris, Charles X Era (first decades of 1800s) all in lacquered wood that imitates the stone and, beyond the central plate, its has others 8 little witch mirrors. A kind of matryoshka of witch mirrors.

But what are witch mirrors? The convex mirror also known as the "witch's eye" you will probably have seen it in some furniture magazine (or even in the famous painting "Portrait of Mr and Mrs Arnolfini" by Jan van Eyck) and perhaps someone will also have asked themselves what the point of having a mirror like this is, since the lens deforms you.

Well, in ancient times it had the task of keeping witches and negative energies in general away. Tradition has it that they were placed in the house, right in front of the entrance door or the windows so that the witches, seeing themselves deformed, would get scared and fly away.

In short, witch mirrors are amulets, lucky charms, antiquities with a great apotropaic effect.

Note the original hanger in gilded bronze with patina which depicts the face of a putto.

Very small wears, slabs patinated by time, but reflective and all, we repeat, all original.

Very rare decorative element, collectible.