HAND MIRROR WITH ESOTERIC MOTIFS.

This exceptional hand mirror, dating from the late 19th century, captivates with the symbolic intensity and esoteric imagination infused in its design. Crafted from gilt and silvered metal, it transcends mere decoration through an iconographic richness evoking occult, alchemical, and initiatory realms.

The oval glass is set within an openwork frame teeming with mythological figures and ambivalent symbols. At the top, a diabolical head with a flowing beard dominates—a frontal face with a penetrating gaze, whose features recall depictions of Baphomet or sylvan pagan deities later assimilated with the devil in Christian imagination. This central figure, adorned with vegetal motifs and volutes, seems to emerge from an archaic pantheon. It is flanked by two winged women, classically draped, holding a golden veil as if to reveal or consecrate the power of the entity they surround. This theatricality suggests a ritual staging, a sacred or infernal unveiling depending on one’s interpretation.

On either side of the frame appear, in high relief, ram’s heads with coiled horns, finely sculpted. In many esoteric traditions, the ram is a symbol of virile power, sacrifice, fire, initiation, and renewal, but is also associated with the Devil in certain occult iconographies, particularly in tarot and alchemy. Here, their grave and downward-facing expressions amplify the object’s ambivalent aura—between light and darkness.

The bottom of the frame is adorned with a female mascaron, hieratic, with a fixed gaze and elaborate headpiece evoking a priestess, a sibyl, or a figure of mediation between worlds. This face marks the beginning of a long, fluted handle ending in a trilobed openwork design, stylized like a ritual seal.

The back of the mirror, in raw metal, is also intricately pierced and features a suspension ring—suggesting dual usage: both as a personal instrument of contemplation and a ritual or magical object, meant to be hung, perhaps even aligned according to symbolic logic.

This mirror is not a simple grooming accessory: it is a power object, where classical imagery intersects with hermetic symbolism. Its presence evokes both divinatory mirrors and initiatory instruments of 19th-century lodges or occult circles, fond of syncretism, ancient mysticism, and magical Renaissance-inspired decor.

Fitting into the tradition of fin-de-siècle symbolic objects, this mirror may have belonged to an esoterically inclined individual or adorned the cabinet of an enthusiast of the occult sciences, passionate about mythology and hermeticism. Its function extends far beyond reflection: it is threshold, passage, symbol.

PERIOD: France, 19th century
DIMENSIONS: 32 cm × 12 cm
SIZE: 12.6" × 4.7"