New word

From time to time over the years I have wondered what pier glasses were. And guessed that they were the high mirrors, maybe three or four times as high as they were wide, that you had in tailors. Set in a stand which allowed them to swivel horizontally. In the shape of a pier or pillar.

Until this morning, when I was moved to consult OED which listed 'pier glass' among the compounds which could be made with 'pier', but which did not offer any clues as to its shape.

Reduced to wikipedia, which has a short entry, including this splendid picture, which explains that pier glasses were mirrors fixed to the piers between the windows which used to line the outside walls of fancy rooms in fancy houses in the 18th century, with these particular ones coming from the Amalienburg Pavilion, Schloss Nymphenburg, a few yards to the east of gmaps 48.1561191, 11.498211. My only complaint of wikipedia being the slight misspelling of 'Amalienburg', as gmaps could not find 'Amalenburg'. Slightly puzzling as google is generally quite good at misspellings.

Perhaps having all these windows, which were handy for letting in light but which were not so handy for letting in a great deal of cold (as can be attested by the trusties in our own stately homes), was as much an assertion of wealth as anything else.

Also reminded of the Petit Trianon, also built as a present for a bored wife. First thought was that the Bavarians had copied the French, as they did in so much, to the point of better class Bavarians speaking French rather than German, but it turns out that the Petit Trianon came second and was built in what was then the latest Grecian fashion. Rococo old hat in France by 1760.

In any event, the episode confirms that I had confused mirrors which look like pillars with mirrors which are fixed on pillars. Not the same thing at all.

Reference 1: http://www.schloss-nymphenburg.de/englisch/p-palaces/amalien.htm.