In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. When describing wallpaper, Marthe Armitage, the designer of this paper, has said “Wallpaper… should be seen and not heard. It should provide a background in a home, and should not make you feel you have to look...

Full of life, movement, and color, this design for a wallpaper is a reproduction of Chinese wallpaper by one of the leading antique and wallpaper scholars of her day, Nancy McClelland. McClelland is known for her attention to detail and meticulous research that went into each of her reproductions. She was also a successful interior...

Whenever I come across this paper I always stop and give it a second glance, not sure whether to love it or hate it. Twelve years later it still grabs my attention. Keep in mind this is an inexpensive machine printed paper. If you can disregard the stripes for a minute, the butterflies and roses...

I love the contrast in this paper by Jacquemart et Bénard between the monochrome neoclassical ornament and the vibrantly-colored animals. This sidewall hovers on the border between the austere Empire style of the first decades of the 19th century and the mid-century taste for highly-detailed, brightly-colored designs. The overall layout of this paper, with its...

I recently had the pleasure of photographing two rather large window shades that had never really been viewed before, due to their large size and fragile nature. These are part of a group of four shades, with each being contained in a rather simple but elegant wood cornice. The two shades that were photographed had...

With the days growing longer and colder, reminders of summer are always welcome.  The whimsical design of the J.B. Schmetterling lamp designed by Ingo Maurer and Axel Schmid, with its realistic-looking insects and butterflies, brings nature to an indoor environment. Produced in 2011, the J.B. Schmetterling lamp is a limited edition art piece. The lamp...

This oval tray represents the unique collaborative effort between Alexandre Brongniart, the director of Sèvres appointed in 1800, and his father, the designer Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart. The younger Brongniart’s passion for the natural world is reflected by the scientific precision of the biological species represented in finely painted enamel. Small roundels of exotic birds and butterflies...

Ted Muehling Expounds Ted hosted a group of Cooper-Hewitt members at his studio and store in SoHo this week, as you can see from the Monday at Muehling’s post, giving them a peek at his wonderfully creative environment full of glass, emotive sculpture and creatures from the natural world. He is also the guest curator...