This Week on Curious Objects


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Glenn Adamson returns to our Curious Objects podcast to discuss Worlds Within: The Art of Toshiko Takaezu at the Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York. Learn more.


Through interviews with leading figures in the world of fine and decorative arts, we explore the hidden histories, the little-known facts, the intricacies, and the idiosyncrasies that breathe life and energy into antiques and works of art.


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Taylor Thistlethwaite Gets Excited About "Brown Furniture"

The value and virtues of an underappreciated form: wood furniture.

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Mixed Metals and the American Origins of Art Nouveau, with Art Slice

A look at the height of Tiffany and Company's success and some of their most stunning mixed-metal wares...

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Advice Ep: How to Buy a Vintage Engagement Ring

From choosing a stone to navigating superstitions, with Matthew Imberman.

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The Woman Who Saved Wedgwood

All about the iridescent “Fairyland” pattern, which revitalized the Wedgwood brand...

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“Enriching Your Life Through Collecting” at The Winter Show

Three distinguished collectors discuss the objects they live by and through.

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The Beatles as Painters

A unique painting by John, Paul, George, and Ringo comes up for auction at Christie's.

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The Marginalia That Made Christie’s Value This Book at $1 Million

A one-of-a-kind copy of the foundational text of modern anatomy.

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Making Your Home a Source of Inspiration, with Tara McCauley

Designer Tara McCauley discusses a small splatter-painted box by artist Thomas Engelhart of Mugler and Hermès.

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Ask Ben Anything

The answers to listeners' questions for host and silver expert Benjamin Miller.

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Lewis Littlepage and the Amazing Silk-embroidered Dreamsuit

Neal Hurst discusses a colorful suit worn by American statesman and bon vivant Lewis Littlepage

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Why Thomas Cole’s “Course of Empire” Cycle is as Relevant Today as in the 19th Century

We chat with filmmaker Rachel Gould, better known on YouTube as the Art Tourist

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A Met Curator Tells the Strange Story of Louis XIV’s Carpets

We delve into the curious history of Louis XIV's commission for a suite of ninety-three carpets to cover the 1440-foot-long Grande Galerie at the Louvre...

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Jewelry We Love and Hate, with Gem X

A selection of enchanting bijoux from the personal collections of the Gem X jewelry club members...

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Debunking the Hitler Diaries and Other Adventures, with Kenneth Rendell

How Kenneth Rendell helped crack the case of the forged Hitler diaries and more...

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Meet the Millennials Proving That Young People Love Old Things

We are joined by the intriguingly named Salt Lizard, a two-woman antiques gallery at the center of hipsterdom: Williamsburg, Brooklyn...

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Should Antiquities Return to Where They Came From?

On the quirks and inequities of provenance, tomb robbery, and repatriation...

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All About Amber, with Laura Kugel

An inside look at the production of seventeenth-century gameboards made from amber

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Why You Should Spend $10,000 on a Shaving Bowl

Silver specialist Oliver Newton introduces us to a 1713 shaving bowl and explains what makes this otherwise workaday object so exceptional.

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Antiques Roadshow Appraiser Nick Dawes

Appraiser and Lalique expert Nick Dawes discusses his most fascinating finds.

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Leather, with Glenn Adamson

ANTIQUES contributor Glenn Adamson discusses one of the oldest as well as the commonest human-worked materials.

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New Perspectives on Ancient Glass

Katherine Larson, the guest for this episode of Curious Objects and curator of the exhibition Dig Deeper: Discovering an Ancient Glass Workshop unearths the glass-making techniques of the Roman Empire.

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The Shakers, Pt. 1: Faith and Furniture

In part one of a two-part exploration, Curious Objects host Benjamin Miller considers the Shakers and their material culture in its historical context.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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Once Upon a Bowl

This is the story of that once-in-a-lifetime moment when an object whose origins disappeared suddenly got its history back. And since that object’s history concerns the grandees of early New York City, we all got our history back, too.

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Craft in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

In this bonus episode of Curious Objects, Abraham Thomas, Roxanne Jackson, and 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.”

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How to Make a Modern Home (with Antiques), featuring Thomas Jayne

In this episode, Ben Miller gets the goods from Thomas Jayne on the history of interiors (from the Greeks to the present day); what to budget first; and the spirit of “democratic decoration,” that, historically, has animated American interiors.

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This Chair is Made of America

Ben speaks with Ellery Foutch, assistant professor of American studies at Middlebury College, about a “relic Windsor chair” assembled by Henry Sheldon (founder of the Middlebury museum named in his honor) in 1884.

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The WPA Origins of the American Doll, with Allison Robinson

During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration funded an interracial labor program in Wisconsin that employed over five thousand women to craft handmade goods: the Milwaukee Handicraft Project.

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Curious Objects: The Book of Hours: A Medieval Best-Seller

More popular than the Bible: that’s what the richly illustrated volumes known as books of hours—which helped worshipers keep track of each day’s seven canonical prayer periods—were during the Middle Ages.

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“The Most Awesome Cup of All Time” . . . and 500 Other Objects

Dealer Adam Ambros and curator Ed Town join Ben to talk about a collection of mostly small objects made in Britain between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, many of them marked with a date, the subject of a new book from the Yale Center for British Art called Marking Time: Objects, People, and Their Lives, 1500–1800.

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A Newly Unearthed George Washington Letter, with Nathan Raab

Nathan Raab of the Raab Collection reveals a never-before-seen missive by George Washington.

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A Journey Back In Time At the Peabody Essex Museum (Part 2)

Benjamin Miller continues his odyssey through the Peabody Essex Museum Collection Center, containing objects sourced from around the globe.

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The New Antiquarians

Host Benjamin Miller welcomes back his erstwhile co-host, Michael Diaz-Griffith, to discuss the latter's new book, The New Antiquarians, a survey of the up-and-coming generation of antiques collectors.

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Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

Guest Kay Collier, who is the owner of Kathryn Hastings and Company, talks to host Ben Miller about her stationery and custom wax seal business, her collection, and her passion for using antiques as they were meant to be used.

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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. Now, thanks to the sleuthing of scholars Jeremy K. Simien and Katy Morlas Shannon, and the efforts of conservationist Craig Crawford, Bélizaire has re-emerged.

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English Glass/Chinese Craft

The technique of reverse-painting was introduced to China in the late 1600s by its European trading partners, who manufactured and shipped the plate glass necessary for its production.

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Corot’s Impressionist Lunchbox

Only nine times in his seventy-eight years did Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot paint on anything other than canvas, paper, and panel. On one occasion, offended by the crude wooden lunchbox carried by his friend Alfred Robaut, Corot had a new one constructed, which he decorated with a plein air painting, Fraîcheurs matinales (Morning Freshness).

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Blended Spirits: A Curious Objects Cocktail Hour at the Winter Show

A cocktail hour Zoom chat about alcohol-friendly antiques at the this year’s (virtual) edition of the Winter Show, the year’s premier antiques fair. You’ll hear about wacky objects and the wild stories behind them from some of the show’s most irreverent dealers.

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What two paintings from the 1930s can tell us about women’s issues

Around 1930, two British artists, Agnes Miller Parker and Jessica Dismorr, went to work on a pair of paintings that are now on view at the Fine Art Society’s galleries in London and Edinburgh. FAS principals Emily Walsh and Rowena Morgan-Cox explain how two women painters made their way when the art world was still male-dominated.

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A Dalva Brothers Wonder Cabinet Turns Heads at Christie’s

Dalva Brothers, Inc., specializes in the sort of lux 1700s French furniture that just screams ancien régime. Some 250 of the choicest items from the firm’s inventory are being offered at Christie’s this October, and David Dalva III, along with Jody Wilkie, talk with Ben about the crème de la crème

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A Fireback from Hell—Ironworks and Industrial Labor in the Antebellum South, with Torren Gatson

Scholar Torren Gatson, guest editor for the current edition of the Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts, comes on the podcast to talk about an iron fireback produced at the Vesuvius Furnace in Lincoln County, North Carolina.

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The Life and Labor of Enslaved Potter Dave Drake, With Ethan Lasser

In this episode, Ethan Lasser, chair of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, tells the story of Dave Drake, an enslaved potter at work in Edgefield County—and that of an 1857 storage jar that bears the lines: "I made this Jar for Cash-/ though its called lucre trash/ Dave.”

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Winter Show and Tell: Three young dealers and the antiques they ❤️

Special guests James Boening (James Robinson, Inc.), Ria Murray (Lillian Nassau), and Taylor Thistlethwaite (Thistlethwaite Americana), joined hosts Ben and Michael at the Park Avenue Armory for a live discussion about six fascinating objects.

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Thirty-five Saxon Suits of Armor, with Chassica Kirchhoff

It's kinetic sculpture, it's haute couture, it’s . . . armor! This month, Ben speaks with Chassica Kirchhoff, an assistant curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts, about a suite of metal suits from the 1500s that were worn and jousted in by the dukes of Saxony.

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Jade, the Imperial Gem, with Clarissa von Spee

Investigating a pair of luxury jade vessels from the Qing and Yuan Dynasties with curator Clarissa von Spee

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Around the World At the Peabody Essex Museum (Part 1)

The Peabody Essex Museum welcomes host Benjamin Miller into their behind-the-scenes Collection Center, a state of the art storage facility for many of their curious objects.

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Textiles Don't Get No Respect

The cope is a curious object. Henry VII commissioned thirty of these richly embroidered vestments for the English clergy, helping to lay the foundation for that special blend of religion, power, and material prestige that would mark the reign of his son, the notorious Henry VIII.

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Gilded-Age Silver with the Gilded Gentleman

Our podcast host Ben Miller shares his expertise on nineteenth-century American silver in this journey through Gilded-Age silver with the Gilded Gentleman podcast.

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The Story of Bélizaire, Pt. 2: Provenance

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.

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The Argument for Silver Tableware

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.

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Collecting Outside the Lines

In this bonus episode, host Benjamin Miller, Jeremy K. Simien, and Jesse Erickson discuss the challenges and opportunities for collectors taking an interest in previously overlooked or under-recognized object categories, but the discussion ranges far afield.

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O’Keeffe on the Block

Reagan Upshaw—critic, dealer, appraiser, and all-around bon vivant—expounds on the lovely filaments, sepals, and stamens of O’Keeffe’s oeuvre. For good measure, he tosses in a couple of choice anecdotes from his time in the trade (and just a wee bit of market talk).

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Museums and the Lure of the Sell-Off, with the PMA’s director and CEO Timothy Rub

The Association of Art Museum Directors killed something of a sacred cow last year when it ruled that museums will be permitted to use funds from deaccessioned artworks—previously strictly controlled—to pay for a wider array of institutional costs.

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Five Hundred Years of American Craft, with Glenn Adamson

Glenn Adamson makes his second appearance on Curious Objects to discuss his new book, Craft: An American History. As his research shows, artisans from Paul Revere and Betsy Ross to Patrocino Barela and George Barris played a crucial and under-examined role in the formation of the United States’ national character.

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A Journey to the Center of the Earth, with Robert McCracken Peck

Drexel University’s Robert McCracken Peck comes on the podcast to talk about the "hollow earth" theory and a perforated wooden globe in this episode of Curious Objects

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Afterlife in Alabaster: A Canopic Jar from Charles Ede

Join us on a journey to ancient Egypt as we explore the quirky material history and dead-serious religious significance of a very curious object: a 2,500-year-old Imsety-headed canopic jar. Charis Tyndall of UK antiquities dealer Charles Ede guest stars.

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The Mystery of the Michelangelo Bust

This month, Ben and Michael speak with Jennifer Tonkovich, curator of prints and drawings at the Morgan Library and Museum. The focus is an odd bronze bust of a crying child—once believed to have been sculpted by Michelangelo.

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An Armchair’s Astonishing Provenance, with Tiffany Momon

This month, Ben speaks with Tiffany Momon, visiting assistant professor at Sewanee University in Tennessee, and founder of the Black Craftspeople Digital Archive, a scholarly resource that explores the contributions that African Americans have made to the material culture of the United States.

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Since 1922, The Magazine ANTIQUES has been the leader in fine and decorative arts scholarship. We’re certain that you’ll enjoy this twenty-first century means of telling stories about the things we collect and cherish.

A new episode of Curious Objects is available each month on iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, and other podcast platforms. We hope you will share your feedback as we continue development in 2022.

Questions? Comments? Have a Curious Object? Email us.

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Benjamin Miller, Host

Ben has been director of research at S. J. Shrubsole since 2016, and is one of the rising stars of the New York art and antiques scene. After leaving his native Tennessee, Ben earned his bachelor's degree at Yale. He is a specialist in antique silver, estate jewelry, and anything old with a good story. Together with Soane Foundation executive director Michael Diaz-Griffith he is the co-founder of the New Antiquarians, a community of interest for the next generation of art and antiques enthusiasts. Check out his Instagram, @objectiveinterest, for more context surrounding the objects on each month's episode of Curious Objects.