Mirror #4 (C.109) is the darkest work in the series — a near-black disc in which the conventions of reflection are almost entirely absorbed by the ground they are meant to illuminate. A sliver of yellow sits at the upper left, parallel stripes run down the left side of the form, a red arc curves across the lower portion, and a dot pattern traces the right edge; against the density of the black field surrounding them, these marks function as signals of a reflective surface in conditions that make reflection all but impossible.

The tonal inversion — the mirror rendered in darkness rather than the silvery brightness the object is associated with — was Lichtenstein's most extreme test of whether the convention could survive hostile conditions. His mirrors had never shown an actual reflection, only the marks that indicated the idea of one. Mirror #4 (C.109) placed those marks in an environment so dark that their usual function — evoking light, suggesting glass, triggering the recognition of a reflective surface — was undermined by everything around them. The marks persisted and the recognition persisted with them, which was the discovery.

By this point in the series Lichtenstein was operating with complete confidence in the investigation he had set himself, each work a variation on the central problem approached from a position the preceding works had not occupied. Mirror #4 (C.109) occupied the most extreme — a work in which the conventions of depicting reflection are present and almost useless simultaneously, the gap between the marks and what they conventionally indicate as wide as the series would ever allow it to be.

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