Paperweight c. 1845 - 1860

Curator: This captivating object is a glass paperweight crafted by the Clichy Glasshouse, likely sometime between 1845 and 1860. You can find this charming piece here at the Art Institute of Chicago. Editor: Wow, it’s so delicate! It looks like a tiny, frozen bouquet. All those perfectly rendered little flowers suspended in glass… it gives me a kind of peaceful, almost melancholy feeling. Curator: The paperweight emerges within a broader cultural fascination of the mid-19th century, specifically the rise of bourgeois culture and its penchant for decorative arts, representing a synthesis of luxury, scientific precision, and romanticized naturalism. Editor: I never thought of paperweights as bourgeois! More like something your sweet grandmother has sitting on her desk, holding down her grocery list. Curator: Think about it within the Industrial Revolution and Victorian era. Floral designs experienced immense popularity, reflecting anxieties about nature's disappearance amid increasing industrialization and urban sprawl. Objects like this were symbols of control—literally containing nature. Editor: I see what you mean! There’s a real tension there: wanting nature, but wanting it tamed, trapped. Like pinning butterflies… Does the choice of specific flowers matter in understanding this paperweight? Curator: Undoubtedly. Floriography, or the language of flowers, was highly fashionable. Different blooms conveyed distinct sentiments and were frequently deployed to send covert messages within rigid Victorian social codes. Though hard to specify exact symbolism here, it invokes discourses around idealized beauty, sentimental attachment, and class aspirations. Editor: It’s amazing how such a small object can open up a whole world. Now, when I look at those tiny glass petals, I think less of a grandmother and more about power, and wanting to keep things in their place... Thanks for that deep dive. Curator: Precisely. Paperweights offer more than mere decoration; they function as crystallized historical artifacts. I appreciate you pinpointing how that encoded stillness allows us to consider broader frameworks of historical influence and visual pleasure.