Author: Catherine Powell

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Ancient Enamelling
This glass vase was made in the 17th or 18th century in Iran. It has a delicate applied glass rope ornament at the base of the neck, and is intricately decorated with gold enamel in a diamond and star pattern. The vase was free-blown, which means that it was produced without the use of a...
Floating Vessel
This delicately hand-sculpted vase might look as though it washed onto the beach, together with a treasure trove of seashells and corals; yet, it emerged from the studio of Sandra Davolio, a designer and ceramicist who lives and works in Denmark. The vase is made of frit porcelain, which is usually composed of crushed quartz,...
Butcher-in-a-Box
How can you draw customers inside your shop, when exposing wares in a window is not an option? This framed wooden butcher’s shop might be an answer.  Although it is unclear to what uses this framed life-like model of a butcher’s shop might have been put, the fact that it is framed and behind glass,...
Weaving with light
Designer Suzanne Tick has shown that design can be functional, sustainable, innovative, and aesthetically pleasing. For example, in a recent video made on the occasion of Earth Day, Tick wove interesting colorful textiles using foil balloons recovered from the beach, as well as wire hangers discarded by the dry cleaners. In creating this hanging lamp,...
Artful Text
Tausend und ein Anfangsbuchstaben – One Thousand and One Initial Letters – is a rare book designed and illuminated by Owen Jones in 1864, eight years after Jones published his influential design sourcebook The Grammar of Ornament. While the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Library’s copy is in German, the book was also published in English...
Modern Geometry
Who knew geometry could be so beautiful? This 1928 sugar bowl and creamer set epitomizes American modern design; yet, it is clearly influenced by the modern turn of European design from the same period, as evidenced by the Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris, 1925, as well as by Walter Gropius’...
A Patriotic Chair
What did George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, General Knox, and Benjamin Franklin have in common? Windsor chairs. These chairs were first produced in England in the very first years of the 18th century. Although many folk tales surround the origin of the name (including some involving George III caught in a rain storm), it is likely...
The 1939 Golden Gate Exhibition Lives On at Cooper Hewitt Library
This 107-page catalog is one of the many treasures that can be found in Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library’s collection of world’s fairs materials. Produced on the occasion of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco by the San Francisco Bay Exposition Company, the catalog is unique in that it is entirely devoted...
Heart shaped form, horizontally placed on three small feet. Circular openings in two lobes, with two inkwells, each with cover. Slight depression on top, at point. White ground with blue decoration of stylized flowers and foliage.
Love Letters
This delicate blue and white faience inkstand transports us back to a time in which letter writing was an integral part of daily communications. The inkstand was made in Rouen, an early center of production for French ceramics known as faience, which is tin-glazed earthenware. Between 1644 and the end of the eighteenth century, it is...