Until the middle of the nineteenth century almost every painter painted at least one reflection, that of their own face in a self-portrait. There’s even a gallery specialising in its unique collection, the Uffizi in Florence, Italy, where they go back six hundred years to Taddeo Gaddi in 1440-50 and Filippino Lippi in 1485. This article looks at a few of the more unusual ones that didn’t make it to the Uffizi.

The most radical and impressive of Gustave Courbet’s early paintings is The Desperate Man from about 1843, in which the artist grimaces wildly at his own canvas. Augmented by his signature in bright red, it might as well have been his manifesto.

Adriaen van der Werff’s Self-portrait with the Portrait of his Wife, Margaretha van Rees, and their Daughter Maria from 1699 is an ingenious family portrait. He holds his palette and brushes with his left hand, and around his neck is a medallion awarded by his patron, the Elector Palatine. His right hand supports a portrait of his wife Margaretha van Rees (1669-1732) and their daughter Maria (1692-1731).

Lovis Corinth’s Last Self-Portrait, painted just two months before his death, is unusual in showing him with his reflection in a mirror. He is balding rapidly, his cheeks sunken, and his eyes are bloodshot and tired.

Pierre Bonnard’s unusual composition in this Interior from about 1905 doesn’t show the woman’s back in the mirror, but a chair placed deliberately in front of the mirror and Bonnard himself, not painting but sat at a table.

There’s more uncertainty as to whether Artemisia Gentileschi’s brilliant painting of the Allegory of Painting (c 1638-9) is a self-portrait. This striking angle of view can be accounted for if this was a self-portrait composed using two mirrors, one placed above and on the left of the painter, the other directly in front of her, where she is gazing so intently. If so, it was particularly ingenious because the reflection in the second mirror would have normal chirality (left and right would not be reversed).

However, it has been suggested that this isn’t a self-portrait, in which case her choice of view would have been most unusual. It’s believed to have been painted during her stay in London, possibly for King Charles I, as it appears to have passed straight into the Royal Collection, where it has remained ever since.

Clara Peeters’ still life with Flowers and Gold Cups of Honour from 1612 reveals multiple miniature self-portraits reflected in the gold cup at the right. These are shown more clearly in the detail below. To project the image of herself correctly for each of the facets I suspect she must have set up a convex mirror in the same alignment as that facet on the cup.

The most famous of all these elaborate self-portraits is surely that of Diego Velázquez in Las Meninas from about 1656-57.

Like many of his mature works, this is a portrait, but unlike any of the others it’s a group portrait of eleven people and a dog in a room in the Alcázar Palace, which is depicted faithfully, according to palace inventories of the time.

The largest figure, although out of the limelight and over to the left, is that of Velázquez himself. He looks towards the viewer, with a neutral face of concentration. His right hand holds a brush with his paint laid out on a wooden palette held by his left hand, which also clutches a bundle of other brushes. He is at work on the three metre (ten foot) high canvas in front him, which happens to be the same size as that on which he painted this work.

Two figures given a prominent and unusual place are the King and Queen, who are shown reflected in a rectangular plane mirror on the far wall. There has been dispute over whether the reflection shows the couple stood where the viewer is, or the mirror is reflecting their painted images on Velázquez’s canvas.

As the mirror is to the left of the centreline of the painting, it’s hard to see that its image of the royal couple could show them standing where the viewer is, and more likely that what appears there is part of Velázquez’s painting. However, the artist had previously been ‘creative’ in his use of reflections in the Rokeby Venus, and at least part of his body should here be obstructing a clear line of sight between what is on his canvas and the surface of the mirror.

Many humans and animals are fascinated by reflections. Whether they’re images of themselves seen in mirrors, or an inverted copy of a landscape seen on the surface of a lake, we can spend embarrassingly long periods just staring at them. For visual artists, those reflections have been a technical challenge and, for those who rise to it, an opportunity to display their painting skills. This series sets out to describe and illustrate how, from the early Renaissance to the twentieth century, masters have painted reflections.

Optical effects are one of the central themes in the Northern Renaissance, as seen in Jan van Eyck’s most famous painting The Arnolfini Wedding (or similar variations), completed in 1434. Between this newly-wed couple holding hands next to their marital bed, in the midline of the painting is a prominent circular convex mirror. The reflection is probably the first example of mirror-play in European art, as it shows a view of the room looking in the opposite direction, past the couple to another two figures, who might be the artist and another.

Look in the landscape behind Jan van Eyck’s Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, probably painted the following year, and you’ll see one of the earliest examples of the meticulously accurate depiction of reflections on water.

In some paintings, reflections are essential to their narrative. Caravaggio’s brilliant Narcissus of 1594-96 uniquely combines chiaroscuro with reflections to provide just enough visual clues to tell this myth so effectively.

The optics of reflections appear to have confounded some painters, while others have deliberately flouted physics for effect, in this case what has become known as the Venus Effect.

Although often illustrated by one of Titian’s paintings of Venus, the canonical example must be Velázquez’ Venus at Her Mirror, also known as The Toilet of Venus or the Rokeby Venus, from 1644-48. It shows the goddess Venus, whose face is blurred in a false reflection in a mirror being held by her son Cupid. The theme was common, seen in paintings by Titian and Rubens, with Venus sat upright. Giorgione and others had posed her reclining and facing the viewer, making her pose here unusual. Most other paintings of Venus set her in a landscape: here she rests on luxurious even sensuous fabrics.

No matter how convincing her face might appear in the mirror, a moment spent placing yourself in the same position confirms that the image in the mirror is wholly imaginary, and optically incorrect.

Pierre Bonnard is among the most prolific and inventive of mirror-players.

In his Woman Getting Dressed from 1906, it’s the mirror at the left that reveals the subject, who is sat beyond the right edge of the painting, getting dressed. Venus has here become a pile of discarded clothing.

As landscape painting became popular, many of the most proficient sought out locations where they could demonstrate their skills at getting them right. Others used reflections as their theme.

In the last two years of Vincent van Gogh’s life, he painted this landmark nocturne Starry Night over the Rhône (1888) with its many shimmering reflections.

Alder Trunks from 1893 is one of Laurits Andersen Ring’s finest landscapes, and has earned its place in the Danish Royal Collection. He shows these old coppiced alders almost entirely in reflection.

Théo van Rysselberghe’s eye-catching geometry in his Canal in Flanders (1894) combines radical perspective projection, intense rhythm and meticulous broken reflections.

Reflections are also used by some of the Surrealists.

Paul Nash’s Landscape from a Dream (1936-38) was inspired by Freud’s theories of the significance of dreams as reflections of the unconscious. This collection of incongruous objects is gathered on the Dorset coast, a landscape Nash associated with the praeternatural. Dominating the scene is a large framed planar mirror, almost parallel with the picture plane. Stood at the right end of the mirror is a hawk staring at its own reflection, which Nash explained is a symbol of the material world. To the left, the mirror reflects several floating spheres, referring to the soul. The reflection shows that behind the viewer is a red sun setting in a red sky, with another hawk flying high, away from the scene.

I hope you’ll join me in the reflections to come in this series.