- chapter 58: Mirrors in art and society –
than the far more laborious and time-consuming efforts of pure cold working. In any case,
all the mirrors, regardless of how they were made, required polishing and this because,
like chasing or engraving, it is part of the cold working process.
It is likely that more than one artisan was involved in making a fi ne mirror. There
might have been a metal smith who cast or hammered the disc to its proper shape;
perhaps another artisan who executed the chased or engraved ornaments like frames and
extension designs; a third, responsible for the primary fi gural design on the reverse; and
a fourth, who carved (and perhaps sometimes painted or gilded) the bone or ivory handle
for a tang mirror. One can imagine a workshop where individual artisans worked together
to create a single, refi ned mirror. There is little evidence for this idea, although we know
defi nitely that Greek pottery was often the product of two artisans: a potter who threw
the vase on the wheel, and a painter who decorated it. Some have suggested that different
painters may have been assigned to do decorative ornaments like frieze patterns while
others were experts at painting fi gures (for example, Caeretan hydriai). In the case of
Etruscan mirrors we have some examples that seem unfi nished because they have only an
ornamental frame waiting to be fi lled with a fi gural scene. In one case from Tarquinia, the
frame is quite elegant and carefully executed but the fi gural scene is rather incompetent
and seems to be the work of a different, far less skilled artist (Fig. 58.7 and compare with
Fig. 33.3).^27
The question of bronze alloy composition for mirrors is also highly debatable. A major
problem is that only a small fraction of the mirrors so far published in the CSE has
been analyzed. And, to complicate matters, different technical methods (not to mention
different laboratories) have been used. Furthermore, it has been noted that samples taken
from different areas of the same mirror often produce different results. Thus, the data
are not always consistent and may be unreliable. Ideally, all mirrors and independent
Figure 58.7 “Uni (Hera) nursing Hercle (Herakles),” mirror from tomb 65, Tarquinia, Fondo
Scataglini, circa 350–300 bc. (Soprintendenza Archeologica per l’Etruria Meridionale, inv. 68705).
From Serra Ridgway 1996, pl. CXL.