RARE LABELED NEW YORK GILDED PIER MIRROR
Augustus F. Cammeyer
New York, 1833-1836
The rectangular molded giltwood frame holds a single period mirror plate. The back boards bearing a paper label: Augustus F. Cammeyer,/ Looking Glass/ MANUFACTURER,/ No. 148 William-street/ Opposite the North Church, between Fulton & Ann sts./ NEW YORK/ Paintings, Prints, &c. framed and/ glazed.
33.5″ x 76″
Condition: Excellent: In original condition with minor touch-up to the outer edges of the frame.
Augustus F. Cammeyer appears for the first time in New York directories in 1827, listed as a looking glass manufacturer at 39½ Frankfort Street.[1] Frankfort runs along the south edge of, what today is, the ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge, from City Hall Park to the South Street Seaport. Cammeyer’s colleagues and competitors, Hosea Dugliss, made mirrors and frames only a few blocks away, being listed variously at 10 Gold, 5 and 11 Park Row, and 232 E. Broadway, and Mathew Carter also listed on William, Pearl and Fulton. This suggests that in the 1830’s this area between the Park and East River was a mirror and frame district among other things.
Cammeyer was listed at 25 Elizabeth from 1831-1832 and at 148 William from 1833-1836, the years when the present mirror was made. He subsequently moved to 453 Broadway, then to John Street for a year and then back to Broadway. He was a native New Yorker and resided at 59 Fulton Street.[2] His son, Augustus F. Cammeyer, Jr., was an engraver and die-sinker.
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[1] Longworth’s American Almanac: New York Register and City Directory, 1827, p. 117.
[2] Betty Ring, “Checklist of looking glass and frame makers and merchants known by their labels” Magazine Antiques (May 1981), 1178-1195.