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Among the thousands of treasures in the Cincinnati Art Museum’s East Asian art collection, a small bronze mirror dating to the 15th or 16th century always seemed a little unusual.
Last exhibited in 2017, it had spent most of the previous decades in storage, where it sat on a back room shelf along with other objects excluded from public display.
But the facility had a hidden secret.
East Asian art museum curator Hou-mei Sung saw something resembling examples from Edo period Japan.
The facility was smaller than those held in museums in Tokyo, Shanghai and New York. So last spring, she toured the museum’s storage rooms accompanied by a conservation expert.
“I asked her to shine a strong, focused light on the mirrorSung said in a video call from Cincinnati.
“So she used her cell phone (flashlight) and it worked.”
On the wall in front of them was the appearance of texture in reflected light, not a distinct image, but enough to start research.
After experiments using stronger and more focused lights, the mirror eventually revealed the image of the Buddha. The inscription on the back of the mirror shows what is depicted: Amitabha, an important figure in various schools of East Asian Buddhism.
The discovery makes the museum one of the few institutions in the world that owns a “magic mirror,” according to Sung.
The curator is aware of only three others that possess rare Buddhist-themed objects, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
“We were very excited”Sung said.
Before the invention of today’s glass mirrors, people from cultures around the world looked at polished bronze, from ancient Egypt to the Indus Valley. The ancient art of Chinese magic mirrors was first developed during the Han Dynasty, about 2,000 years ago, although they were later made in Japan as well.
To create the mysterious effect, artisans began by casting images, words or patterns on one side of a bronze plate. The scientists believe they then scratched the plain surface on the other side, before polishing it until it became reflective like a conventional mirror. Because the plate was of different thickness due to the embossed pattern, the process created very slight variations in curvature on the mirrored, seemingly blank side.
A mercury-based substance was then used to make a surface additive that was invisible to the naked eye but matched the elaborate patterns on the back, according to an article in the UNESCO Courier magazine.
When sunlight hit the reflective surface in a certain way, a hidden image, matching the design on the back, would be revealed, giving the illusion that the light was passing right through the mirror.
The mirrors puzzled Western scientists who discovered them in the 19th century.
And while their optics are now widely understood, Sung said experts still don’t know exactly how the craftsmen worked the metal.
“No matter how much you can theoretically explain, it all depends on the master polishing the surface, which is extremely difficult”, she said. “That’s why they’re so rare.”
The museum has yet to reveal whether it originated in China or Japan, although Sung believes it is most likely the former.
The object was first registered in the museum’s Asian art collection in 1961, although the curator thinks it may have been acquired much earlier. She also suspects that other institutions and collectors are in possession of magic mirrors without realizing it.
The mirror will be on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum from July 23./ BBC
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