by the Ages

Three years ago, Ernest Hershberger and a team of talented Abner Henry craftspeople traveled to New York, scouring The Metropolitan Museum of Art in search of the perfect inspirations for the creation of a once-in-a-lifetime collection. After months of considering thousands of artifacts, they settled on seven masterpieces and went to work imagining the creations that would represent the powerful messages of some of the most globally recognizable paintings in existence.

The limited-edition collection, of which only 70 reproductions of each design are available, reveals the stories of everlasting spiritual journeys.

“There’s some really unique stuff that was done from an artistic standpoint in most of these pieces,” Hershberger, founder of Abner Henry, says. “There was a lot of trial and error to come up with the final designs because we were doing things that, to our knowledge, had never been done before.”

One such example is the 24-karat gold dust infused into the wood grain gilded legs of the Duet Nesting Tables, which was inspired by The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil, painted by Edouard Manet.

Another is the Vetana Standing Mirror, created to reflect the importance of Juan de Pareja, painted in 1650 by Diego Velázquez. The solid brass polished mirror, which stands 70 inches high and 24 inches wide, is (as far as Hershberger knows) the only design of its kind in existence, requiring collaboration with metal specialists to polish the mirror’s brass face to a reflective shine.

Complete with a solid mahogany frame, the piece represents the story of an artist who was painting his enslaved apprentice, Juan de Pareja. It’s been said that through the process of painting, Velázquez saw Pareja as an equal and released him, allowing Pareja the freedom to become a famous painter himself.

As to the highly polished nature of the mirror: “The more you polish brass, the more reflective it gets,” explains Hershberger. “You will never get done polishing brass, and we’ll never get done refining ourselves,” he says, adding that revolution is exactly the battle that everyone on Earth faces and is the reason it’s his favorite piece in the collection. “This piece represents self-reflection, peering into your own heart to see if you like what’s looking back at you.”