Lead Silvered

Warm, mat, dark metallic shine on a glass ornament indicates that lead was used for the inside mirror coating. This was the established method in the 19th century. Considering the bad health consequences which were caused by working with the heavy metal, it was a tremendous advance when lead mirroring was gradually replaced by silver coating during the last third of the 19th century. This process had been initiated in 1856 by the German chemist Justus von Liebig.