Articles

Gargoyles

Gargoyles were a fixture of Medieval and Gothic architecture, both for practical water drainage purposes, as well as for aesthetics. While Egyptians and Romans had also employed gargoyles as an ear...

Chinese Export Porcelain & Other Chinese Antiquities

When people think of Asian decorative arts, they most often think of what is known as Chinese export porcelain, wares produced specifically for a vast and eager audience outside of China. While for...

The History of the Barber Pole

You see them, hanging on the exterior of a building, or maybe through a picture window of a store. The red white and blue stripes lit up, spinning and seen from blocks away. The Barber Pole. Natu...

Antique American Furniture, By Region - Part 2

Another set of holidays have arrived, and with it, opportunity anew to investigate your relatives' furniture! If you haven't already, or even if you have, it may be fruitful to read Part 1 of this ...

Origins, Evolution, and Iconography of Stained Glass - The Poor Mans Bible

While we typically associate stained glass with religion, it has been an art form since ancient times, with some of the earliest examples of colored glass beads dating from about 3000 B.C.E. found...

Antique American Furniture, by Region - Part 1

This Thanksgiving, while either recovering from that third piece of pumpkin pie, or perhaps milling about and making room for the first piece, you may be at your great-aunt's, parents' or in-laws' ...

Western Skies From Eastern Eyes : Frederic Remington

The Bronco Buster, a bronze sculpture of a cowboy riding a rearing horse. This sculpture and the history behind it plays an important role in the creation of the world’s idea of the Old West. It i...

The Long and Wonderful Life of the Peacock Chair

Scrolling social media, one may notice a resurgence of the iconic Peacock Chair. Typically constructed of wicker with a pedestal hourglass form base and broad and tall backrest, it's a chair that's...

Mark Tochilkin and Artist Repression in the Soviet Union

Artist Mark Tochilkin, born in 1958, was born in present day Ukraine, and grew up in the Soviet Union. While he displayed a propensity for art very early on, the Soviet Union was far from being a f...

Utopian Communities and Decorative Arts - Studio Alchimia

While not exactly 'Utopian', Studio Alchimia was a collective of Italian radicals that used design as a means to combat inequality and consumerism in the second half of the 20th century. As a precu...