Magazine May/June 2025


MAY/JUNE 2025


Guest Editor's Letter

Michael Diaz-Griffith

Field Notes

Reading the Room
Sarah Archer

Objects

String Theory: Once more familiar than the harpsichord, the salterio is being rediscovered by musicians drawn to its complexity, history, and spellbinding sound.
Benjamin Davidson and Pippa Biddle

Perspectives

A roundtable with the next generation of decorative arts curators, a new age for old wonders, and an artist’s take on collecting.

Collecting

Objects of obsession from a group of young collectors at the forefront of a new collecting culture.

Exhibitions

Design in the 1940s at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Mid-West modern at Cranbrook, British country house treasures at WOW!house London, and more.

Books

Marcus & Co.: Three Generations of New York Jewelers by Sheila Barron Smithie and Beth Carver Wees

Museum Visit

New leaders take the reins at the expanded Frick Collection.
Brian Boucher

Endnotes

A Museum for Past and Future: Eleanor H. Gustafson speaks with Nicholas Cullinan, recently appointed director of the British Museum.
Eleanor H. Gustafson

Image
British mocha ware displayed on the shelf of a c. 1800 Maine or New Hampshire apothecary cabinet, in the home of a lifelong collector of Maine antiques. Photograph by Ari Kellerman. Design by Studio Samuel.


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Features



Living With Antiques: The Patient Collector

With modest means and fifty-five years of persistence, a Maine state employee built a remarkable collection—and a legacy—one or two objects at a time.
Amanda Breen, Lorna Condon, and Julie Solz
Photographs by Ari Kellerman

Living With Antiques: The House Collector

On an Alabama farm, a lover of vernacular architecture rescues and reimagines historic log cabins—preserving place, memory, and a powerful sense of home.
Katy Kelleher
Photographs by Robert Rausch

Why Craft Skills Are Worth Saving

When we lose traditional craftsmanship, we lose knowledge, culture, and the possibility of truly enduring beauty. But, says the founder of Soane Britain, the future is still ours to make.
Lulu Lytle

Rooms with a Viewpoint

At Houston’s Rienzi and Bayou Bend, directors Christine Gervais and Daniel Ackermann are
expanding definitions of the house museum—making space for complexity, community, and joy.
Christine Gervais and Daniel Ackermann

Aesthetic Movements

From William Morris to the Wiener Werkstätte, the visual language of new London hotel At Sloane dances across centuries—an operatic composition in tiles, textiles, and taste, orchestrated by François-Joseph Graf.
Daniel Lipton

Pixel Perfect

Factum Arte and its preservation-focused foundation use cutting-edge technology to re-create and safeguard cultural heritage, from tapestries to tombs.
Wendy Moonan