Arched Dresser Mirror in Soft Blue, Repurposed as a Wall Mirror, c. 1920–1945

The Piece

A generously proportioned arched mirror in a broad, plain-faced wooden frame, painted a soft chalky blue-grey. The arch is the whole design — a full dome rising from square shoulders, with the frame held to an even width all the way around so the shape reads clean and architectural. There is no carving and no molding beyond a simple stepped rabbet at the glass, and the piece is better for it: the color and the silhouette carry it entirely.

The original bevelled plate is intact, with the faint clouding and edge softening that old silvering acquires. Set into each side of the frame is a small counterbored screw hole — the mounting points where this mirror once pivoted between the support arms of a dresser.

History & Provenance

This began life as the mirror from a bedroom dresser or vanity. From the 1920s through the 1940s, nearly every American bedroom suite included one: a large arched or shaped plate swinging between two upright arms bolted to the case, so it could be tilted. The arched dome with square shoulders is the characteristic profile of that period, spanning the late Colonial Revival and the waterfall and Art Deco suites that followed.

Those suites are now the hardest furniture in the world to sell — too big, too dark, too specific to a bedroom nobody arranges that way anymore — and they are broken up constantly. The mirrors are what survive, because a well-shaped mirror is useful in any room and a dresser is not. This one was separated from its case, and has been repainted in a soft blue-grey that turns a piece of brown bedroom furniture into something that reads as current.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

The arch is doing a great deal of work here. Arched mirrors are the single most requested shape in interiors right now, and the new ones cost a fortune and look like everyone else's — this one is ninety years old, has an original bevelled plate, and costs a fraction of a catalog version.

Its best use is leaning. Set on a mantel, a console, a dresser, or straight on the floor against a wall, the arch reads as architecture — a doorway into the room behind it. Hung, it works above a sideboard, in an entry, or over a bath vanity where the shape softens a hard rectangular room. And that dusty blue is a genuinely good color: warm enough to sit with wood and brass, cool enough to hold its own against white, cream, or a deep painted wall.