Mercury glass urn at a shop on Rue Jacob in Paris. Photo by Coco of Cococozy (above)
Still in Paris!
Was at a store yesterday on Rue Jacob on the Rive Gauche (love saying Rive Gauche…seems so hoity-toity, cliche, chic, perfectly posh and 1950’s all at the same time) when I saw several mercury glass urns. I was transfixed by them. Shiny, sparkling and glimmering. Realized all of a sudden that I have in fact been seeing a lot of mercury glass home decor items around…both here in France and back in Los Angeles.
Mercury glass was allegedly the poor man’s version of silver eons and eons ago. The glass is made by putting silver in between sheets of blown glass (apparently no mercury is used or ever has been used to make mercury glass)….with this technique the glass is given the look and shininess of mercury.
Nowadays it seems that manufacturers use a variety of techniques to get the same effect…shiny metal tones with the lightness of glass. As I perused through home decorating sites, I found that in some cases…mercury glass is not even the silver color of mercury anymore!
I like the idea of grouping a trio of vessels on a dining room buffet, or mixing and matching candlesticks and vases on a living room fireplace mantel, or even perhaps filling a single small urn with perfumed powder and placing it on a dresser in a luxurious bedroom!
Here are some more mercury glass items in today’s CHEAP TO CHIC:
West Elm – Mercury Glass Candlelight Set – $54 (two mercury glass candlesticks with a copper finish) (above)
Crate & Barrel – Jolie Table Lamp – $189 (Antiqued mercury glass squares off beneath a silvery khaki lamp shade topped off with a glass ball finial; 150W max.) (above)
