Start the 2022 Year of Glass with a modern glassmaker inspired by ancient Roman models.

From the archives, an Object of the Day post on an example of iridescent design from the collection.

From the archives, an Object of the Day post on an example of iridescent design from the collection.

Don’t get these twisted: the Via Portico d’Ottavia is an area of ancient ruins in Rome, located in the center of the neighborhood designated as the Jewish ghetto in the sixteenth century. The Roman emperor Augustus, known for ushering in the Pax Romana period of relative peace and stability for the empire, originally built this colonnaded...

This pendant might look like it is a small, decorative trinket, but it had great religious and magical meaning to the ancient Egyptian who wore it. Depicting Sakhmet, the lion headed warrior goddess, it belongs to a group of objects called amulets that were meant to protect the owner through the use of apotropaic magic....

While slated to become a lawyer like his father and two brothers in the family firm of Weeks & de Forest, Lockwood de Forest as a young adult aspired to a career in painting. He was related by marriage to the celebrated and very successful landscape painter Frederic E. Church and the de Forest family socialized...

Piranesi’s originality lay in his eclecticism. Pulling together influences from Egyptian, Etruscan, Ancient Roman, and Greek designs, Piranesi presented a hybrid design system that was rooted in his commitment to the stature and importance of the Roman design heritage. From this starting point, the architectural elements move from historical recreations to articulated fantasy. While his...