BY CHAD STEWART
In the decades following the American Revolution, Charleston, SC, stood at the cultural, social, and economic center of one of the young nation’s wealthiest regions. The vast resources wielded by the slave-owning planter and merchant classes facilitated the acquisition of expensive, refined objects including splendid furniture, silver, art, and imported Chinese porcelain.
BY GRACE FORD-DIRKS AND CRISTINA FREIRE
For nearly 200 years, a small Chinese writing desk has been the prized and lamented possession of generations of Quaker women in Philadelphia. Today, it sits in the front parlor at Wyck, the ancestral home of nine generations of the Wistar-Haines family in Germantown.
BY ERIC BIRKLE
An edge, a border, an ornament, a container—even a fitting—these are various ways in which picture frames have been described, studied, and understood over time. The notion of the frame as a work of art—as either a standalone object or a crucial component of an interdependent whole—is a less familiar concept.
BY ARIELLE SUSKIN
Balsamaria are a somewhat enigmatic genre of Roman metalwork. They are small containers in the shape of human heads or busts, ranging from approximately two to eight inches tall, typically featuring hinged lids and applied handles.
BY NUR’AIN TAHA
Ivory has long been one of the most charged raw materials of global exchange, prized for its smooth texture, lustrous surface, and capacity for fine carving. The ivory pipe case—a portable yet striking item—offers a revealing window into the intersections of trade networks, cultural exchanges, and material.
BY JASPER MARTENS
Netherlandish miniature portraits with costumed mica overlay share a uniform visual language and were produced within a relatively short span during the 1630s and 1640s. These little-studied objects are primarily female portraits accompanied by about 20 translucent overlays depicting a wide range of costumes, both male and female, that often reference distinct geographical identities and social and economic roles.
BY JULIANA FAGUA ARIAS
Between the late 16th and the early 19th centuries, the so-called Manila Galleons connected the Southeast Asian port of Manila with the Mexican counterpart of Acapulco. Direct trade between these two essential nodes of the Spanish empire enabled artistic circulation between Asia and the Spanish Americas, a cultural flow that enriched both sides of the Pacific.
BY YADIRA QUINTERO AND LAURA BEACOM
Museo De Las Américas in Denver, CO, has a growing collection of over 4,000 objects, including approximately 600 textiles, consisting of a wide variety of historical and contemporary garments with accessories, tablecloths, handicrafts, and other housewares.
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