In their own words: Objects of obsession from a group of young collectors at the forefront of a new collecting culture.
Nautilus shell lamps by Moritz Hacker
I’m not too proud to say that I have a consumption problem. When I travel, it’s magnified tenfold; even more so when it’s to someplace where I’ve never been before. The last time this trifecta aligned was last December: my darling and I began a long, winding holiday throughout Europe with touchdowns in a combination of cities that allowed me to nickname it our “Maria Callas Tour.” Vienna was our first stop (Callas performed Lucia di Lammermoor there in June 1956), and I found this pair of nautilus shell lamps by Moritz Hacker on our first day. The afternoon was gray and misty, and the iridescent shells caught my eye through the window of Nikolaus Kolhammer’s gallery like a lighthouse guiding a lost ship to shore.
Our plans to visit the Albertina Museum were quickly swept to the side, and Chagall would have to wait. In 1902 Hacker, a designer and producer of decorative objects for the Viennese courts, took a pair of large shells and turned them into the twin beauties sitting in my Manhattan pied-à-terre today. The color of each shell is a mixture of blush pink and beaming white, transforming like a chameleon depending on how the light hits it. Hacker found them to be an ideal shade for a lamp and continued to play on the nautical theme. Silver-plated brass is forged to appear like waves at the base of the lamp, with a naturalistically curved stem reaching up and wrapping the shells, as if they were caught by seaweed.
According to Kolhammer, the two lamps have remained together throughout their entire history. So, when he asked if we would be taking one of them or both, I simply told him I wasn’t interested in being the first person to separate them. (Whether that was true or just a way to get us to buy both, I don’t know, nor do I care.) We left with a few other objects from the gallery, including a Gothic clock from the early nineteenth century, but this art nouveau duo remains my ultimate favorite find in my history as a collector of decorative objects.
There is a sense of drama in their narrative and a large dose of elegance in their sinuous shape. I can hear the muted underwater movements of a churning ocean when I look at them.
But, while it is physical beauty that drew me to them, it is the way time seems to stand still within them that anchored me and pushed me to add them to my collection. They are currently perched on my writing desk, and I am constantly astounded by how old they are. I think of the stories they would tell if ever they were animated: of jubilant parties in Vienna; of long dinners within the home of their previous Italian owners; maybe even of eccentric collectors in Kolhammer’s gallery.
Isn’t it sentiment that turns an object into something rare? Perhaps luxurious? And a lack thereof that turns an object into something easily replicated and forgotten? These two lamps have tales to tell, and now they’ll be able to tell the story of an American couple riding the high of exploring the world together hand in hand—our story forever entwined, and forever inseparable.
ISIAH MAGSINO is a New York City–based editor and collector who enjoys the ballet and opera.
