Foxing is the term for what happens to a mirror when the silvering behind the glass begins to fail: the surface clouds, darkens in patches and takes on a warm grey bloom. It is a fault, and it has been prized for a century as the most attractive thing that can happen to a looking glass. Antique Mirror is drawn from a reclaimed tile design and printed to reproduce it.
The effect is built from two printing decisions. A foil ground supplies the reflectivity, and transparent ink is laid over it so light passes through the pattern and returns off the metal rather than stopping at the surface. What you see is therefore not a picture of mirror but an actual reflective surface with the clouding printed into it, which is why it behaves like glass as you move past it.
Laid out as tiles, it gives a wall the character of a panelled overmantel run right across a room. It belongs where light is scarce and needs multiplying: a dining room, a windowless cloakroom, the back wall of a bar, an alcove behind shelves. Against dark paint or unpolished timber it reads as age rather than as glitter, which is the distinction worth protecting.
