"The world has become uglier since it began to look into a mirror-everyday."
Karl Kraus, journalist, poet, and playwright
Primitive peoples would have found their reflections in the surface of still ponds, while mirrors used in early Greek and Roman civilizations and in Europe during the Middle Ages were highly polished pieces of metal that reflected light off their surfaces. However, the real leap forward for vanity occurred during the early sixteenth century, when the Venetians developed a method of backing a plate of flat glass with a thin layer of reflecting metal that was an amalgam of tin and mercury, much increasing the clarity of the reflection.
The earliest mirrors were hand mirrors used for personal grooming, and later as objects of household decoration with frames made of ivory, silver, or carved wood. The chemical process of coating a glass surface with metallic silver, from which modern techniques of mirror-making were developed, was discovered by Justus von Liebig in 1835. English brothers Robert and James Adam designed large and elaborate fireplaces that used mirrors to great effect. In the nineteenth century, mirrors were incorporated into pieces of furniture, such as wardrobes and sideboards.
In modern times, mirrors are used in scientific apparatus such as telescopes, cameras, and lasers and in industrial applications. Mirrors designed for electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths other than that of visible light are also used in manufacturing, especially of optical instruments.
