Parclose mirror Le Beaucaire Provence 1820 rare piece succession Cannes

Mirror parcloses le beaucaire provence 18 th rare piece. The gilded wooden mirrors called "wedding mirrors" were offered by the families to the young spouses. In provence, they are called "beaucaire mirrors" because they were made in the workshops of beaucaire and tarascon. Adorned with vines, foliage, baskets or flowers, they always rest on small feet. Contrary to popular belief, beaucaire's mirror was not made in this city. It was sold there at the annual fair. The beaucaire fair was by far the most important commercial event in france and even in europe with an estimated attendance of more than 120, 000 people around 1780. You could find all the products of the french industry. The mirror shops that most often worked to order for the elite of the nobility and clergy, however, produced a more common model in series with thinner glasses, a. Flatter décor, most often nailed has a pine floor. Of various sizes but always of substantially identical shapes this production was intended to be sold at this fair. The faience workshops of moustiers also worked in the same way at the end of the 18th century, a production of very high quality on order and models made faster for the fair a decoration called beaucaire. However, we must not imagine that this production was intended for workers, the archives tell us that a small beaucaire mirror cost nearly a year of pay for a soldier under the 1st empire. (girault de saint-fargeau, dictionnaire industriel de la france, 1847).

Ref. : 3GQ3936X