Curious Objects

In this episode, Ben Miller introduces the Fine Objects Society, a new “association of forward-thinking professionals and enthusiasts who share a devotion to fine handcrafted historic objects” of which he is president. Officers Brenton Grom, Bailey Tichenor, Sarah Margolis-Pineo, and Benjamin Davidson, all former guests on the podcast, are on hand to detail the goals of this exciting new endeavor in the antiques field.

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They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And in the antiques world the sincerest form of imitation is reproduction: the humble and studious attempt to conserve the lessons of the past because of their timeless value. One firm that’s well-versed in this particular form of historical homage is James Robinson, Inc., whose hundred-year partnership with a legacy silver workshop in Sheffield, England, has resulted in what host Ben Miller calls “the best historical-style silver flatware being made today anywhere in the world.”

In this throwback episode, James Boening, director of James Robinson, Inc., and Craig Kent, workshop manager in Sheffield, come on the pod to dish about the vital importance of age-old processes like annealing, and the irony that homeowners would run themselves ragged trying to decide which rug to buy, but will settle for cold, unbalanced steel tableware without even blinking.

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In this episode, Ben Miller speaks with knit maven Heavenly Bresser, founder of the store Heavenly Knitchet and devotee of ye olde spinning wheel. The pair gets into the mechanics of spinning wheels, the form’s centuries-old history, and the largest wheel in Bresser’s extensive collection, which is also her favorite: a pendulum wheel manufactured by Justin B. Wait in the 1800s, whose drive wheel is 46 1/2 inches in diameter.

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In this episode with Claremont Rug Company, president and founder Jan Winitz and Ben Miller explore myths about rugs, and the symbolic meanings of colors in rugs and importance of signatures. Winitz introduces his Oriental Rug Market Pyramid, which categorizes rugs from high collectible to reproduction levels, illustrating this and other points with four Persian Ferahan Sarouks, each of which represents a different quality level and degree of rarity.

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In part one of a two-part episode with Claremont Rug Company, president and founder Jan Winitz gives Ben the goods on the first Oriental rug he ever acquired. Made on a vertical loom over the course of nearly a year by a group of women, its imagery includes dragons (for the masculine principle of the cosmos) and phoenixes (for the receptive, earth-rooted feminine principle). It made such an impression on Winitz that he’s never attempted to sell it.

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In this week’s episode, Ben Miller speaks with Emelie Gevalt, curatorial chair for collections and curator of folk art at the American Folk Art Museum in New York. On view starting September 13 at the museum is the exhibition Playing with Design: Gameboards, Art, and Culture, an exhibition co-curated by Gevalt, who has brought along one special example to discuss: a nineteenth century painted-wood Game of the Goose board.

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In this week’s episode, Ben Miller speaks with Annamarie Sandecki, who describes herself as the “semi-retired former director” of the Tiffany Archives, and Medill Higgins Harvey, curator of American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On the light table are a curiously shaped creamer and equally curious sugar bowl, the first in the shape of a frog and the second shaped like a pufferfish. Both were made by Tiffany under the aegis of design director Edward C. Moore, whose personal collection of decorative arts objects from around the world served as an inspiration to Tiffany in the later 1800s, and is the subject of a current exhibition at the Met, Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany and Co.

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In this week’s episode, host Ben Miller speaks with Sarah Margolis-Pineo about a turning chair prototype made at the Mount Lebanon Shaker community. But don’t sit in it. Looking like a Wendell Castle sculpture avant la lettre, its bird-bone-thin spindles and threaded metal swivel mechanism are too delicate to support the weight of a full-grown adult.

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ANTIQUES has a new editor in chief! Mitch Owens, formerly of World of Interiors, joins Ben Miller on this special episode to give listeners an inside look at his art and design philosophy, and his plans for the magazine. Sneak preview: when Ben asked what would be the salvation of the antiques world, Mitch replied that it’s essential to inspire collectors to acquire objects “promiscuously.” “People love things, people are magpies, and I think we should do everything in our power to encourage these explosive affairs of the heart,” he says, even if they occur across diverse collecting categories. An example of our editor’s own “promiscuous” taste is this week’s curious object: a copy of a fifteenth-century enameled and gilded wedding cup made by the Murano glass-making family Barovier.

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In this episode, Ben digs into the history of Beauport, the Gilded-Age mansion perched on a rock ledge overlooking Massachusetts’s Gloucester Harbor. Built by Henry Davis Sleeper, one of the country’s first interior designers, it was conceived as a house-sized Valentine for the statesman and economist Piatt Andrew, the object of Sleeper’s (unrequited) affections. Vin Cipolla, president and CEO of Historic New England, which stewards the house today; the institution’s curator of collections Erica Lome; and writer and curator R. Tripp Evans feature.

Additional music by

@JackIsidore

@SamGriffinGuitar

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