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Lost & Found September – October 2023
[Left] Bought for $6,000, grime-covered windows are actually Tiffany— and worth up to $250,000 each. Last fall, antiques collector Paul Brown heard about two large stained glass windows covered in grime inside a west Philadelphia church. Built in 1901, the church had been purchased by the Emmanuel Christian Center, which was converting the old building into a worship space and youth center. According to the New York Times’ Michael Levenson, Brown learned about the windows on Facebook Marketplace. A salvager at the church asked if he wanted the windows before workers “sledgehammer them out.”
– Smithsonian Magazine
[Above] Horse Collar Pad: One of the more unusual privy diggings finds recently was this teal blue pressed glass object. It is embossed ‘COLLAR PAD NO. 3 PATD JAN. 31, 1888.’ It is broken into two pieces and is missing a corner but is still an interesting and attractive piece of old glass. We assumed it was part of a neck brace for a human, but a review of the patent proved otherwise. See story in next issue of AB&GC.
[Above] This is the age of glass. Glass-covered tables are all the vogue, and glass houses are being built with glass bricks, but the very latest is the glass umbrella, which is covered with “silk” spun from glass, says “T.A.T.” These umbrellas, of course, will afford no protection from the rays of the sun, but they possess one obvious advantage, namely, that they can be held in front of the face when meeting the wind and rain, and at the same time the user will be able to see that he does not run into unoffending individuals or lamp posts. – Corning Museum of Glass, “Glass Umbrellas,” November 18, 1905.
[Right] Man or Woman? 19th-century descriptions of the figure on this gold-glass portrait identify it as the image of a man, but subsequent study of the hairstyle and clothing suggested it might be a woman. The inscription around the head wishes joy to Anatolius, a male name. The grammar indicates the name doesn’t refer to the figure in the image, but rather the person viewing it. Under a microscope in the Conservation lab, it was discovered that this figure has a short beard. So perhaps this individual is intentionally androgynous, subverting our expectations of gender identity and expression. Turns out, this is actually a pretty common subject in Roman art, but we don’t see it as often in glass.
– Corning Museum of Glass, Medallion with Portrait, Roman Empire, 200-299. Purchased in part with donated funds from the Clara S. Peck Endowment.
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