Curious Objects

Jan 15 2025 122 ep. 43 mins 766
Curious Objects Podcast artwork

Through interviews with leading figures in the world of fine and decorative arts, Curious Objects—a podcast from The Magazine Antiques—explores the hidden histories, the little-known facts, the intricacies, and the idiosyncrasies that breathe life and energy into historical works of craft and art.

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Lost and Found in Cleveland

Jan 15 2025 50 mins  
In this episode Ben Miller welcomes Keith Gerchak and Marisa Guterman, makers of the upcoming film Lost and Found in Cleveland. Featuring beloved stars like Martin Sheen and Jon Lovitz, along with *checks notes* “Constipated Appraiser” (Denise Dal Vera), the film follows a cast of characters intertwined with and connected to the world of antiques. Miller, Gerchak, and Guterman

THROWBACK: Thirty-Five Saxon Suits of Armor, with Chassica Kirchhoff

Dec 04 2024 47 mins  
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. Emblematic of the feisty Protestant state’s chivalric past and supreme examples of Saxon metalworking prowess, by the

Introducing the Fine Objects Society

Nov 14 2024 52 mins  
In this episode, Ben Miller introduces the Fine Objects Society, a new “association of forward-thinking professionals and enthusiasts who share a devotion to fine handcrafted historic objects” of which he is president. Officers Brenton Grom, Bailey Tichenor, Sarah Margolis-Pineo, and Benjamin Davidson, all former guests on the podcast, are on hand to detail the goals of this ex

THROWBACK: The Argument for Silver Tableware

Oct 30 2024 48 mins  
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. One firm that’s well-versed in this particular form of historical homage is James Robinson, Inc., whose hundred-year partnership with a legacy silv

From Barn to Yarn: The story of spinning wheels, with Heavenly Bresser

Oct 16 2024 49 mins  
In this episode, Ben Miller speaks with knit maven Heavenly Bresser, founder of the store Heavenly Knitchet and devotee of ye olde spinning wheel. The pair gets into the mechanics of spinning wheels, the form’s centuries-old history, and the largest wheel in Bresser’s extensive collection, which is also her favorite: a pendulum wheel manufactured by Justin B. Wait in the 1800s,

Learning to Love Antique Rugs, with Jan David Winitz: Part 2

Sep 25 2024 43 mins  
In this episode with Claremont Rug Company, president and founder Jan Winitz and Ben Miller explore myths about rugs, and the symbolic meanings of colors in rugs and importance of signatures. Winitz introduces his Oriental Rug Market Pyramid, which categorizes rugs from high collectible to reproduction levels, illustrating this and other points with four Persian Ferahan Sarouks, ea

Learning to Love Antique Rugs, with Jan David Winitz: Part 1

Sep 11 2024 29 mins  
In part one of a two-part episode with Claremont Rug Company, president and founder Jan Winitz gives Ben the goods on the first Oriental rug he ever acquired. Made on a vertical loom over the course of nearly a year by a group of women, its imagery includes dragons (for the masculine principle of the cosmos) and phoenixes (for the receptive, earth-rooted feminine principle). It mad

The curious histories behind board games, at the American Folk Art Museum

Aug 28 2024 40 mins  
In this week’s episode, Ben Miller speaks with Emelie Gevalt, curatorial chair for collections and curator of folk art at the American Folk Art Museum in New York. On view starting September 13 at the museum is the exhibition Playing with Design: Gameboards, Art, and Culture, an exhibition co-curated by Gevalt, who has brought along one special example to discuss: a nineteenth ce

Tiffany's frog-shaped creamer and pufferfish sugar dish, at the Met

Aug 14 2024 41 mins  
In this week’s episode, Ben Miller speaks with Annamarie Sandecki, who describes herself as the “semi-retired former director” of the Tiffany Archives, and Medill Higgins Harvey, curator of American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On the light table are a curiously shaped creamer and equally curious sugar bowl, the first in the shape of a frog and the secon

CO Bites: Pretty, Dangerous

Jul 31 2024 13 mins  
In this week’s episode, host Ben Miller speaks with Sarah Margolis-Pineo about a turning chair prototype made at the Mount Lebanon Shaker community. But don’t sit in it. Looking like a Wendell Castle sculpture avant la lettre, its bird-bone-thin spindles and threaded metal swivel mechanism are too delicate to support the weight of a full-grown adult. Learn more about your ad ch