Box 1787 - 1788

Curator: What a delicately constructed container, sitting right here from 1787 or '88! This "Box" by Jacques Francois Varin resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Crafted with metalwork mastery, it’s really Rococo, don't you think? Editor: Rococo, indeed! I’d say opulent is its resting state. All those flourishes, what was its job? To hold smelling salts for some fainting gentlewoman? The metallic gleam just screams 'luxury object'. Curator: It’s the meticulous labour that catches my eye; a true materialization of craftsmanship! Each tiny dot seems to have been placed with precision, a testament to the skilled hands of the artisans of the time. Think of the silversmiths—the societal role of those making these objects. Editor: Exactly! It gives this otherwise... decorative piece real heft, if you will! Thinking of that period, one wonders—what secrets, perhaps revolutionary notes or stolen kisses, could this little vessel have held? It really does invite speculation beyond its surface beauty. Curator: I am drawn into a state of quiet contemplation when beholding such items. Editor: Well, that makes one of us. I guess I'm all for a deeper sense of purpose for something so elaborately produced and overtly bourgeois. Curator: Yet consider this, within its elaborate swirls and finery lies also the human impulse towards order; it's more than decoration, but a symbol, an allegory, maybe even a silent poem waiting to be written. It also makes me reflect, as so many things from that time do, of what has disappeared. Editor: Good point! So from high society scent holder to relic holding lost human experience…not bad! Now I'm starting to see some value in all that meticulous metalwork beyond the purely decorative.