Flea Market Find: Vintage Mirror

Mirror Decorated with Vintage Postcards

I couldn’t resist this lovely vintage mirror decorated with old postcards. I had promised myself to stop buying vintage postcards at French flea markets, but this could be characterized as a mirror… n’est-ce-pas?

Origin

I originally thought the postcards, or the object itself, came from the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany because of the wooden clogs on the left-hand postcard. However, now that I’ve done a little research on clogs, I see that they’re in fact more similar to the French variety of the wooden shoe. Le Sabot.

Le sabot is a clog from Northern France. These shoes from the 16th to 19th centuries were associated with the lower classes. During the Industrial Revolution, the use of the word ‘sabotage’ increased.

The word sabotage is allegedly derived from sabot. Disgruntled, impoverished workers would willfully damage workplace machinery by throwing their sabots into the works.

Another theory is that sabot-clad workers were simply considered less productive than others who had switched to leather shoes. Perhaps it was the weight of the shoes! This led to roughly equating the term “sabotage” with “inefficiency.”

I much prefer the first version of events.

Do you think this object was homemade? Were the postcards significant to a certain family or do you think these mirrors were widely sold? I’m curious. Ever seen anything like this?

Check out more Curious Papers and Flea Market Finds.