Paperweight c. 19th century

Curator: The Minneapolis Institute of Art holds this exquisite "Paperweight," a work from the 19th century attributed to the Clichy Glass Works. It’s a rather stunning piece of decorative art crafted from glass. Editor: It’s… peaceful. Like a little frozen garden, a micro-utopia preserved in crystal. There's something almost melancholic about trapping those daisies, though they still seem vibrant somehow. It really does have a nice way to draw in light to highlight them! Curator: The symbolism of flowers is often tied to notions of beauty, fragility, and the transience of life, but also rebirth. Daisies, in particular, have layers. Think innocence, purity, cheerfulness, but also resilience – they’re such common, persistent blooms. I think of those associations with its symbolic weight when considering that someone probably used this object daily. Editor: A tiny meditation on your desk… the opposite of our digital overload today. The flowers look so alive inside the glass, like a snapshot from the artist’s garden! Though, the crystal cuts give a rigid feeling to something that appears natural. It feels odd! Curator: Perhaps that’s part of the appeal, this juxtaposition. Clichy was quite renowned for their millefiori paperweights, where different colored glass rods are heated and arranged to form complex patterns, then encased in crystal. What do you read from its possible use as an office supply? Editor: Maybe the owner loved nature and beauty and longed for them! Or maybe they needed the constant reminder of something alive to deal with endless piles of lifeless papers. And the weight keeps the ideas... well, grounded. In the age of tweets and disappearing thoughts, that solidity is deeply comforting, I'd want to fidget with that glass all day. Curator: Exactly. Holding that weight—something of beauty but also function— connects one viscerally to a past where such tactile engagement with objects was commonplace. There's something wonderfully human about such connection that this particular piece seems to capture so eloquently. Editor: So true! A pretty bloom becomes something permanent and weighty, but the glass has these radiating patterns inside that almost vibrate in the right lighting. It feels more like art in the sense that something simple as a flower becomes multifaceted with reflection!