All about Gilded Age silver, with Curious Objects and the Gilded Gentleman.
Curious Objects: Thomas Commeraw, Free Black Potter in 1800s New York
For nearly two hundred years, from his death in 1823, New York potter Thomas Commeraw was out of sight. In the digital age it finally became possible to positively identify him: as a prosperous free Black craftsman with a manufactory in Corlears Hook.
Curious Objects: BONUS Episode: Collecting Outside the Lines
A few weeks back, Curious Objects host Benjamin Miller participated in a panel discussion at the Winter Show alongside collector Jeremy Simien (former guest of the podcast) and Morgan Library and Museum curator Jesse Erickson…
Digital doings: From Shakers to Conquistadors
From Shakers to Conquistadors
Curious Objects: The Shakers, Pt. 2: Afterlife
In the second and final part of Curious Objects’ exploration of Shakerism, host Benjamin Miller interrogates the myths that have arisen around this movement in the 150-odd years since its heyday…
Curious Objects: The Story of Bélizaire, Pt. 3: The End; or, A New Beginning
In this final installment of the trilogy we consider Bélizaire’s legacy and that of his portrait. Does the debonair boy of 1837 have an afterlife ahead of him?
Curious Objects: The Story of Bélizaire, Pt. 2: Provenance
Last week we took a close look at Bélizaire the person, and his tortured life-path through antebellum Louisiana society. This week we examine the painting that is the reason anyone knows Bélizaire’s name in the first place, and follow the twists and turns by which it traveled from the studio of Jacques Amans in 1837 to the collection of Jeremy Simien today.
Curious Objects: The Story of Bélizaire, Pt. 1: Biography
This is Bélizaire, and at some point around the turn of the twentieth century—for reasons unknown—his portrait was covered up…
Digital doings: Chatting from Winter in Spring, a Curious Cupid, and More
Chatting from Winter in Spring, a Curious Cupid, and More
Curious Objects: Bonus Episode: Craft in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
In this special bonus episode of Curious Objects, Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Abraham Thomas, ceramist Roxanne Jackson, and painter Andrew LaMar Hopkins join host Benjamin Miller onstage at the 2022 edition of the Winter Show to grapple with the legacy of Walter Benjamin’s famous 1935 essay “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”