King Louis lost his head

I should have written 'Mrs M lost her head' as here I am off at a tangent again.

I am busy sorting through things and packing up in anticipation of my move next year. If you saw my house you would understand just how many many weeks it's going to take to pack so each day I try to do one or two boxes. 

I am getting to the point really I am.

Below are two exemples of what we sometimes call a 'Marriage Mirror' and they date from the late 18th century onwards to mid 19th. There are many different qualities on the market but they usually sell for between 350 and 700 euros and not Something that I would purchase.

Here you can see poor headless Louis rescued from my antique dealer who bought it and dropped it and then hid it under a table with all the pieces in a box. I of course rummage in his store and finding it decided to 'rescue' it, so for 30 euros it was mine.

I had checked that all the pieces were there but figured that I just couldn't make it worse.

This is the back showing that the wood is not great quality so I guess that it was a sort of mass produced provincial version for the local market. It was made in the 'big town' called Laval near me from where I catch my train when I go anywhere.

The store was called 'CROISSANT' like the French breakfast roll and of course no longer exists. They won a medal in 1852 for their work and they sold wallpaper, frames and mirrors amongst many other items. 

Here you can see that I have already glued in a few pieces and noticed that a piece of mirror was missing so I sprayed some mirror silver onto the back of a piece of flexable plastic and after making a pattern I cut to fit and glued in place.

I 'aged' the mirror to fit in with the old one.

So far so good.

The top part of the mirror had warped and pushed forward which had fragilised the whole. I used synthetic putty to assemble the top after doing some tests on scraps to see how well it would glue.

I had never used synthetic putty before and I admit that the smell of it is enough to get anyone ready for a party ! I left it to dry for 24 hours before sanding it down. Its best to not get too much where you don't want it as it's tough to get off.

Here you can see the new angle of the top part. I think that originally it was slanted but warping had done a lot of damage. You can see that I had to fill in large cracks in the carving on the profile with the same putty and then sand down. I glued back in place the upright support although it doesn't really serve a purpose now.

The mirror almost done looking better.

I found this extra piece in the box of bits and almsot discarded it until I saw a gap and tried to place it. It sat in perfectly and filled a visual hole in the top. 

Here you can see that I gilded the putty filler with gold dust paint. When it is dry I will patinate it with some brown shoe polish.

Molding a piece to complete the bow before gilding and fixing in place.

I will refine it once dry.

Here is the synthetic putty I used. I says that it is perfect for polystyrene and wood assembly but it mostly used by model makers to fill in small inperfections in their builds. It is quite cheap at about 5 euros a small tube and I am sure that it has many applications in miniature work. 

Well I hope that this product will be of use to some of you, I am sure that it can be great as it doesn't seem to shrink, it sets super hard and is sandable and paintable. I would suggest gloves as I had a tough job getting ot off my fingers.

Once finished this mirror will go into storage and one day will hang somewhere in the new house.

I now have to find a solution to move the 300,000,000 books and magasines!