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Ben visits the Art Slice podcast
25 Plays1 year ago
Last month Benjamin Miller made a guest appearance on Art Slice, hosted by the podcasting power couple—and artists and art historians—Stephanie Dueñas and Russell Shoemaker, and now available here. The trio’s conversation focuses on a dazzling group of mixed-metal wares made by Tiffany and Company in the latter part of the nineteenth century, including such standouts as an 1879 chocolate pot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a coffee pot shown at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Of special interest is the former object’s patinated copper elements, produced by an alchemical technique that was a closely guarded trade secret during the most fertile period of the silver firm’s history.
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Transcript
Introduction to Art Slice & Ben's Involvement
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:15
Speaker
There's a podcast that I love, and if you're not listening to it already, you should be.
00:00:19
Speaker
It's called Art Slice, and it's this amazing duo talking about art and art history.
00:00:26
Speaker
But it's not like a lecture.
00:00:27
Speaker
It's so fun and spontaneous and irreverent.
00:00:31
Speaker
And at the same time, it's super smart and well-researched.
00:00:34
Speaker
They've done amazing episodes about Duchamp and Klimt and Goya, but they also go off the beaten path.
00:00:41
Speaker
And they've been doing this series lately that I love about colors.
00:00:46
Speaker
So a few weeks ago, Art Slice published an episode all about purple.
00:00:51
Speaker
And I mean, it really is all about purple, from milking mollusks for purple dyes to Byzantine porphyry to the Muppets.
00:01:00
Speaker
And then in case that wasn't enough, and how could it be, they invited yours truly to join in for a bonus episode about purple in my field.
00:01:11
Speaker
And you might be thinking, wait, isn't Ben a silver specialist?
00:01:14
Speaker
What could purple possibly have to do with silver?
00:01:18
Speaker
Well, you're right, but you're also wrong.
00:01:22
Speaker
And to tell you what I mean by that, today we are bringing you this bonus bonus episode of Art Slice crossing over with curious objects.
00:01:32
Speaker
And so without further ado, here are Stephanie and Russell and Art Slice.
00:01:39
Speaker
Listeners, today we will be discussing patinating alloys.
00:01:46
Speaker
with Ben from Curious Objects Podcast.
00:01:49
Speaker
Ben, welcome.
00:01:50
Speaker
Welcome.
00:01:51
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:52
Speaker
Long overdue.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:55
Speaker
We've been going back and forth.
00:01:57
Speaker
We've had some snowstorms.
00:01:58
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:02:00
Speaker
Thank you, Ben, for being so patient and rescheduling with us like four times, five times, it seems like.
00:02:06
Speaker
I don't know.
00:02:06
Speaker
Something like that.
00:02:06
Speaker
Too many.
00:02:07
Speaker
Too many times.
00:02:08
Speaker
Listen, we coexist in this tiny community of art-related podcasts, and I love it, and I will do anything for anyone in this little shared world of ours.
00:02:19
Speaker
It's very small.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yes, it is.
00:02:21
Speaker
But I'm still discovering new shows like yours, so that was great.
00:02:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:25
Speaker
Okay, Ben, can you tell us and the listeners a little bit about what you do every day?
Ben's Journey into Antiques
00:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, so I do a lot of things every day.
00:02:37
Speaker
I, as you mentioned, host a podcast called Curious Objects about the stories behind antique objects.
00:02:41
Speaker
It's mostly decorative arts oriented, but we've gone into the flat art world from time to time.
00:02:47
Speaker
Actually, we have an episode coming out about a painting by the Beatles, which I'm super excited about.
00:02:53
Speaker
which has a lot of purple in it.
00:02:55
Speaker
So maybe apropos.
00:02:57
Speaker
Did all the Beatles paint on it or a specific?
00:02:59
Speaker
All four of them.
00:03:00
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:03:01
Speaker
Okay, we got to see this.
00:03:03
Speaker
Even though I think only two of them went to art school.
00:03:05
Speaker
So the other two were completely unqualified to paint, but they had the audacity to do it anyway.
00:03:10
Speaker
Love that.
00:03:12
Speaker
And then in my non-podcast life, I am a specialist in antique silver.
00:03:18
Speaker
And I work with a gallery called Shrub Soul, which is based here in New York City.
00:03:23
Speaker
It's this 100-plus-year-old family business specializing really in silver and sort of the highest-end old silver.
00:03:31
Speaker
And that's anything from your forks and your spoons and your knives to your candlesticks to your giant candelabra and trophies and stuff.
00:03:39
Speaker
Anything you can imagine that you could possibly make out of silver, we do it.
00:03:43
Speaker
Nice.
00:03:44
Speaker
Silver is my first antiques love, and it's the area that I'm really sort of a connoisseur in.
00:03:50
Speaker
But I love anything old that has a story behind it.
00:03:52
Speaker
I love the way that old things connect us to people and places and ideas that are distant from ourselves.
00:04:00
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:04:01
Speaker
So what got you into this field of like, I guess it's kind of research, it's also kind of gallery work, it's almost like museum adjacent.
00:04:11
Speaker
What made you choose this pathway?
00:04:13
Speaker
It was a complete and utter accident.
00:04:17
Speaker
I had no idea I wanted to do it until I tripped and stumbled and fell into it.
00:04:22
Speaker
This is not something I studied in school.
00:04:25
Speaker
I wanted to write about antiques and I thought I'd try to get a job in the business just to learn a few things before going off and
00:04:34
Speaker
I wanted to write a series of essays or a book or something about Southern antiques in particular as a lens to look at like, you know, culture and history and transformation of the American South.
00:04:47
Speaker
And what I didn't realize was how hard it was going to be to get a job in a field where I had literally no qualifications or background or experience or connections or anything.
00:04:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:56
Speaker
And yeah, so I spent a lot of time knocking on doors and getting these really strange looks.
Learning the Antiques Trade
00:05:01
Speaker
And then one night I was at a bar and I got to chatting to the guy sitting next to me at the bar and he asked me about my work.
00:05:08
Speaker
And I said, well, I'm trying to get into the antiques business.
00:05:12
Speaker
And he said, well, that's funny.
00:05:13
Speaker
I'm an antiques dealer.
00:05:14
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:05:16
Speaker
And I said, what?
00:05:18
Speaker
Are you serious?
00:05:18
Speaker
He gave me his card, it was the real deal?
00:05:21
Speaker
We hit it off.
00:05:22
Speaker
He hired me and he turned out to be a specialist in antiques.
00:05:28
Speaker
So he took me under his wing.
00:05:29
Speaker
And, you know, in this in in the antiques world, like if you want to learn about stuff, if you want to be a connoisseur, like you can read every book that's ever been published and get like 5% of the way there.
00:05:41
Speaker
And the other 95% of the way is looking at things like thousands and thousands and thousands of objects.
00:05:47
Speaker
And then even more important than that is talking to other people who have looked at thousands and thousands of objects for decades and who learned from people before them.
00:05:56
Speaker
And before them, it's very much an apprenticeship model.
00:05:59
Speaker
And so, yeah, working for this guy, Tim Martin, was really an incredible way to get my feet wet.
00:06:07
Speaker
And then I found out that it was really a pretty cool line of work with
00:06:10
Speaker
You know, the beauty of the objects and the history, but also the detective work, the sleuthing.
00:06:15
Speaker
Oh, that's cool.
00:06:17
Speaker
The intrigue, the fakes and forgeries and the, you know, swindlers and everybody trying to fool everybody else all the time.
00:06:25
Speaker
But, you know, knowledge is power and it keeps you on your toes.
00:06:28
Speaker
I researched provenance for a, I think it was a 15th century credenza, Italian credenza.
00:06:34
Speaker
And I mean, I'm sure you know, you can just get lost in hours and hours of research just following that one rabbit hole that actually leads to nothing.
00:06:42
Speaker
But you know what?
00:06:42
Speaker
It was super fun.
00:06:43
Speaker
So it was like worth it.
00:06:44
Speaker
So I totally I totally get that research aspect of it.
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:47
Speaker
What did you what did you find out about the credenza?
00:06:49
Speaker
That it was owned by this family that then sold it to that one.
00:06:54
Speaker
And at a certain point, it just there's nothing there.
00:06:56
Speaker
So then you just have to really write about like what's in front of you, which is, you know, the credenza itself.
00:07:02
Speaker
But yeah, at some point there's just no documentation.
00:07:05
Speaker
Sure.
00:07:06
Speaker
The trail ran cold.
00:07:07
Speaker
It did, but it was fun.
00:07:08
Speaker
It was worth it.
00:07:10
Speaker
Is another big part of it actually like interacting with the objects I'm under, I think, too, like being able to like physically like touch them, like, you know, is that a part of it?
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:20
Speaker
I mean, at least in my field, that's such a huge fraction of it.
00:07:25
Speaker
And it's tough, like, you know, more and more online auctions are just happening online.
00:07:30
Speaker
And so you look at the pictures on the website and you're like, that's pretty or that's not.
00:07:34
Speaker
And then you bid on it.
00:07:36
Speaker
But then you get it in the mail and you're like, oh, shit, there's 12 things wrong with this that I couldn't tell from the pictures.
00:07:43
Speaker
And sometimes it's minor, you know, condition issues that don't make such a difference.
00:07:48
Speaker
But other times it's, you know, you discover that the whole damn thing is a fake or that there's some like major like illicit restoration or repair.
00:07:57
Speaker
that totally craters the value of the object.
00:08:00
Speaker
Either you need to see it in person or you need to be willing to just take a huge risk and live with the consequences.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah, there's not some sort of... You got to get their home address and track them down.
00:08:15
Speaker
They sell you a border.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, I shouldn't say too much about that.
00:08:19
Speaker
Oh.
00:08:21
Speaker
Let's just say we've got Marco and Guido on speed dials.
00:08:26
Speaker
I love that.
00:08:26
Speaker
You've got connections.
00:08:29
Speaker
I think, I don't know about your experience in the museum, but I guess since our experience is so much in the museum, most of all of the objects that we would interact with, we actually don't get to interact with, right?
00:08:41
Speaker
They're behind glass.
00:08:42
Speaker
You have to walk around them.
00:08:44
Speaker
You get to observe them from certain vantage points.
00:08:47
Speaker
but I mean, I don't know.
00:08:48
Speaker
Like they're not, they are like in some ways like very accessible in the way that like you can tell that this was used for something, but since it's so old or antiquated or just like an old way of like,
00:09:03
Speaker
I don't know, eating or help me out here.
00:09:05
Speaker
No, you're good.
00:09:06
Speaker
So like what we would call, well, what is referred to as decorative objects.
00:09:11
Speaker
So not paintings, not necessarily like your fine sculptures, right?
00:09:15
Speaker
Like, I don't know, a tea set, a sterling silver tea set.
00:09:19
Speaker
But it's behind glass and like, and there's only so much you can see.
00:09:21
Speaker
Like, is it well lit and where is it positioned?
00:09:24
Speaker
Can you walk around it?
00:09:26
Speaker
Like 360, like it, we are very, it's not very accessible.
00:09:29
Speaker
I think you already said that.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yeah, like it is and it isn't.
00:09:32
Speaker
Like in the sense that it's in a public collection so you can see it.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's accessible.
00:09:38
Speaker
But in the sense of like, can it ever again be used for the purpose for which it was made?
00:09:42
Speaker
The answer is probably not.
00:09:44
Speaker
And I have to be a little, I have to tread a little carefully here because I love museums, obviously.
00:09:48
Speaker
And like museums are some of our best clients.
00:09:51
Speaker
And, you know, the curators at these institutions do incredible work all the time.
00:09:57
Speaker
And I love, I mean, I work a block from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
00:10:01
Speaker
I go there over my lunch break, you know, most days.
Museums and Object Accessibility
00:10:05
Speaker
I've been there hundreds of times.
00:10:06
Speaker
It's like my favorite place in the world.
00:10:08
Speaker
That being said, of their collection, which is about, I think it's 2.4 million objects.
00:10:15
Speaker
like a tiny fraction of 1% of those pieces are on display.
00:10:20
Speaker
And of that, you know, there's another tiny fraction that might someday be on display or that might be part of a, you know, a traveling exhibition.
00:10:30
Speaker
And then there's another small portion that might be used by scholars for some purpose or that might have like connoisseurial value.
00:10:36
Speaker
And then there's the rest of it, which is kind of sitting around and collecting dust.
00:10:40
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:10:41
Speaker
You can end up in some pretty fiery arguments about like, what are these objects doing there and should they be there or not?
00:10:48
Speaker
But the one thing that just kills me, and this is not just museum collections, this is a lot of private collectors too, is like, imagine Notre Dame, right?
00:10:58
Speaker
Great, great cathedral.
00:10:59
Speaker
Everybody who goes to Paris walks into Notre Dame and they have this amazing experience.
00:11:03
Speaker
But Notre Dame is like an incredibly important historical monument.
00:11:07
Speaker
And of course, having people trudging in and out of it all day long, like subjects it to risks and, you know, it caught fire, right?
00:11:15
Speaker
I mean, that's not related to tourists necessarily, but it's like, it is risky to have a building like that
00:11:21
Speaker
in use.
00:11:22
Speaker
And yet, if you were to close Notre Dame to worshippers, you know, because it's too important to subject it to that kind of risk, like you would be taking the soul out of it.
00:11:32
Speaker
Right.
00:11:32
Speaker
And I feel the same way about a lot of these decorative arts objects.
00:11:36
Speaker
There are some that are like too precious and delicate and valuable and you shouldn't, you know, you should be very ginger and careful in how you handle them.
00:11:44
Speaker
For the most part, you know, like these things were made to be used.
00:11:47
Speaker
And if you're not using them, they're losing something really important about what they are.
00:11:52
Speaker
Don't be afraid of antiques.
00:11:54
Speaker
Like don't, don't put gloves on.
00:11:56
Speaker
Don't literally or figuratively like put it in your kitchen cabinet, take it out, you know, make your tea in your antique silver teapot and, you know, pour it into your antique China tea cups and drink it and enjoy it.
00:12:13
Speaker
get all the pleasure and satisfaction out of those objects that their makers instilled into them.
00:12:19
Speaker
So in some ways, like they're almost more accessible in some ways than actual like quote unquote art objects.
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, like I don't think there's really like a huge difference in that, like because they are meant to be used, which I think we've talked many times about like art versus craft and how, you know, really there's quite a bit of overlap there.
00:12:38
Speaker
So, yeah, I really like what you're saying.
00:12:40
Speaker
Do you feel like there is a difference between looking at some sort of antique and some sort of work of art?
00:12:48
Speaker
Is there any difference for you at all?
00:12:50
Speaker
That's such a... It's a very loaded question.
00:12:52
Speaker
Difficult question.
00:12:53
Speaker
I mean, yeah, excellent question.
00:12:55
Speaker
That's a brilliant question.
00:12:57
Speaker
No, it isn't like...
00:12:59
Speaker
It's interesting to think about because it immediately forces you to ask, what is this stuff for?
00:13:08
Speaker
What is a painting for?
00:13:09
Speaker
What is a coffee pot for?
00:13:11
Speaker
What is a pair of shoes for?
00:13:14
Speaker
And these things, these objects and works of art, they fulfill many different purposes all at the same time.
00:13:21
Speaker
And it's easy to say, well, this is an aesthetic object and this is a functional object, but that's almost never fully true.
00:13:29
Speaker
Right.
00:13:29
Speaker
I mean, even when you talk about something that seems as clear as a painting, this is a work of art.
00:13:36
Speaker
It's an aesthetic object.
00:13:37
Speaker
It's meant to be put on the wall and like looked at.
00:13:40
Speaker
Well, yeah, but also like tons of paintings are there just to like
00:13:45
Speaker
add color to a room.
00:13:47
Speaker
They're there to provide a pleasant distraction for your peripheral vision.
00:13:53
Speaker
It's not necessarily always fulfilling the function of being some platonic ideal of a work of art.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:01
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:14:02
Speaker
I think the spectrum is very, very fuzzy.
00:14:07
Speaker
Every object that we use in our lives on a daily basis has an aesthetic component.
00:14:13
Speaker
I think
00:14:13
Speaker
paying a little more attention to that is
00:14:15
Speaker
it can be really gratifying and can like increase our quality of life tremendously.
00:14:19
Speaker
And I realize I'm completely preaching to the choir here, but it's something that's often lost in culture and that the sort of distinction between art and craft is designed to like smother.
00:14:34
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:14:34
Speaker
That's a good word.
00:14:35
Speaker
I really like how you describe that too.
00:14:37
Speaker
Like art does have a function.
00:14:39
Speaker
It's something that we are very aware of, but I think it's almost like you can't say that.
00:14:46
Speaker
devalues it or something like that.
00:14:50
Speaker
Every holiday shopper's got a list, but Ross shoppers, you've got a mission.
00:14:53
Speaker
Like a gift run that turns into a disco snow globe, throw pillows, and PJs for the whole family.
00:14:58
Speaker
Dog included.
00:14:59
Speaker
At Ross, holiday magic isn't about spending more, it's about giving more for less.
00:15:03
Speaker
Ross, work your magic.
00:15:05
Speaker
I, so you, you know, we've been talking about purple, and I was thinking, gosh, like, you know, I know some
00:15:15
Speaker
objects some antique objects that have purple in them you know they pop up here and there we talked about porphyry which i know you you got into briefly episode which is awesome but then i was thinking like i'm a silver dealer and silver although it's not purple generally speaking unless something has gone terribly wrong um there is actually a
00:15:38
Speaker
pretty strong purple connection.
00:15:41
Speaker
And it takes the form of what we refer to as mixed metals work.
00:15:46
Speaker
So these are like works of decorative arts that are made not just with silver, but with other metals, you know, in different types of alloys.
00:15:56
Speaker
It's an idea that goes back a long, long time, but it really starts to flourish in the 19th century, particularly the Japanese have a really strong tradition.
00:16:05
Speaker
Oh.
00:16:06
Speaker
of working in mixed metals.
00:16:08
Speaker
So taking silver, but also iron and copper and, you know, all different combinations of these elements, you know, bronzes and brasses and whatever else and gold and putting them all together.
00:16:21
Speaker
into an object that can then be this wild, like multicolored, multilayered thing.
00:16:28
Speaker
And in the 1870s, this idea, this like mixed metals style comes over to America, thanks to Tiffany and company, which, you know, we know as the like return to Tiffany blue box, etc.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:44
Speaker
But like back in the 19th century, Tiffany was for a period of time, in my opinion, the greatest silver manufacturer in the world.
00:16:52
Speaker
They made unbelievable objects in an incredibly creative and imaginative way.
00:16:58
Speaker
And a big reason that they were able to do that and like take their place on the world stage as like a leading producer of decorative arts is because they were drawing inspiration from these international sources, particularly from Japan.
Tiffany & Co's Innovations in Decorative Arts
00:17:14
Speaker
It was their design director, Edward C. Moore.
00:17:16
Speaker
And he started to put together a collection of just, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of objects that were
00:17:23
Speaker
from Japan, also from Korea, from China, from elsewhere across the East, and then eventually from the Middle East as well, you know, and Persia and the Mughal Empire and India, etc.
00:17:34
Speaker
So, he was totally fixated on this.
00:17:37
Speaker
But it wasn't just, you know, idle collecting.
00:17:40
Speaker
It was really purpose-driven collecting.
00:17:42
Speaker
Because he used this collection, he actually put these objects in the design workshop at Tiffany.
00:17:47
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:17:48
Speaker
in downtown New York City.
00:17:50
Speaker
And all of the Tiffany designers were like interacting with these objects, looking at them, studying them, learning about their aesthetics and their form and design, but also about the techniques, the metalworking techniques that the Japanese had used to make these really wonderful works of metal.
00:18:09
Speaker
And then copying them, really just like blatantly copying them, staking them.
00:18:15
Speaker
It's crazy because, you know, Japan was totally closed until 1853.
00:18:19
Speaker
They were intentionally isolated and they had a wonderful decorative arts tradition that barely seeped across their borders at all.
00:18:29
Speaker
And then suddenly, there's this incredible explosion and like Christopher Dresser goes over there and his first stop on his way back, he goes to New York and gives a bunch of stuff to Edward Seymour that he bought in Japan.
00:18:42
Speaker
And it leads then to the silver workshop at Tiffany becoming this incredible confluence of ideas and styles.
00:18:50
Speaker
So yeah, that's sort of the context.
00:18:53
Speaker
You might wonder like, so what does this have to do with purple?
00:18:56
Speaker
Because even copper is not really purple, right?
00:18:59
Speaker
It's like red or orange.
00:19:02
Speaker
But they got really creative and they started using all of these chemical processes to patinate, artificially patinate
00:19:10
Speaker
metals that they were working with to create a huge range of colors.
00:19:14
Speaker
And so, there are actually pieces from this period from the 1870s and 80s by Tiffany that they have large quantities of copper alloy, but then they've been, I guess, patinated is the word that we generally use, but it's like artificially colored in ways that
00:19:32
Speaker
create this wonderful range of technicolor hues that they look like they have depth when you look at the object.
00:19:40
Speaker
It's like your eyes are kind of seeping into the surface and seeing all these layers of material and color.
00:19:48
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:19:48
Speaker
A small number of them are this brilliant...
00:19:51
Speaker
deep, rich purple color that is just really magical.
00:19:56
Speaker
That sounds amazing.
00:19:57
Speaker
I'd love to see one of these in person.
00:19:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:00
Speaker
Well, you can.
00:20:02
Speaker
You can at our shop or at the Met or at, I think the St.
00:20:07
Speaker
Louis Museum has one or two.
00:20:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:11
Speaker
So maybe Kansas City.
00:20:13
Speaker
That's not too far from us.
00:20:14
Speaker
We'll have to seek it out.
00:20:18
Speaker
We were obsessed with this chocolate pot, this chocolate pot from Tiffany & Co, right?
00:20:24
Speaker
We want to describe it a little bit for our listeners and-
00:20:28
Speaker
We're going to take a stab at it.
00:20:30
Speaker
And if you feel like you need to step in, please feel free to.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah, feel free to correct us.
00:20:34
Speaker
The chocolate pot is made of silver, patinated copper.
00:20:39
Speaker
It's got gold and ivory as well.
00:20:42
Speaker
This sort of mixed media of metals was very surprising to us.
00:20:46
Speaker
And we had to zoom in really close because obviously we don't have it.
00:20:51
Speaker
In front of us, but when I looked at it, I was like, is this the is this the right caption like chocolate pot?
00:20:57
Speaker
I don't I don't think hot when I first look at this I think more of like a kettle definitely You're gonna have to explain to us what a chocolate pot is here in a second.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:07
Speaker
Yes
00:21:08
Speaker
It's got a metal body.
00:21:09
Speaker
It's got a silver handle, a silver spout, and it's also got some like silver patterning around the top half.
00:21:17
Speaker
And then the non-silver metal part is very purpley, which is what you described, Ben.
00:21:21
Speaker
That must be the copper.
00:21:22
Speaker
Yeah, the copper, the purple copper.
00:21:24
Speaker
Gotcha, gotcha.
00:21:25
Speaker
It's like it's a nebulous color, but it's also this really beautiful, like almost a dusty grape color from from the photograph.
00:21:33
Speaker
Like I said, we haven't seen it in person.
00:21:35
Speaker
It's kind of like an honest grape.
00:21:37
Speaker
Like what?
00:21:39
Speaker
Not like a modern factory farmed grape, like a real grape.
00:21:43
Speaker
A rustic grape.
00:21:44
Speaker
A grape that has seeds in it, still has the seeds in it.
00:21:47
Speaker
And then like the.
00:21:48
Speaker
Thank you.
00:21:50
Speaker
The silver spout, like, it almost has, like, the texture of... The closest thing I could describe it as is, like, cabbage leaves, I guess.
00:21:57
Speaker
I don't know.
00:21:59
Speaker
And there's like an emblem with like three more of those leaves and then like almost like a fronded, three more fronded leaves on top of that.
00:22:12
Speaker
And then behind that emblem is like this geometric, it reminds me of like boutique patterning, like something that... Boutique?
00:22:19
Speaker
Boutique?
00:22:20
Speaker
Boutique?
00:22:20
Speaker
Like Japanese boutique?
00:22:21
Speaker
What am I saying?
00:22:21
Speaker
Boutique?
00:22:23
Speaker
Boutique.
00:22:23
Speaker
Boutique.
00:22:25
Speaker
And it looks like a pattern that like a mid-century modern like couch might have on it or something like that wallpaper.
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:22:32
Speaker
Definitely love that.
00:22:34
Speaker
But also for me, last but not least, we have to talk about the silver lobster and the ivory handle on top.
00:22:41
Speaker
Those are just kind of like the cherries on top, so to speak.
00:22:45
Speaker
Lobster on top, yeah.
00:22:46
Speaker
It works.
00:22:47
Speaker
It works.
00:22:47
Speaker
This sounds wild, but it all works.
00:22:51
Speaker
It doesn't seem like it should go together, but it definitely does.
00:22:54
Speaker
And I have questions about the lobster.
00:22:55
Speaker
Can I just say, does it sound, based on the description you've just given, I wonder if listeners think that it sounds like a coherent object, or if it sounds like...
00:23:08
Speaker
Or also if it sounds like something that was made in the 19th century, like doesn't it sound like wildly postmodern?
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:15
Speaker
Yes, it does.
00:23:16
Speaker
And I would, if you're not looking at the image, listeners, would love to see just like a drawing of what you think it looks like.
00:23:24
Speaker
I'm not sure we did a good job of describing it.
00:23:27
Speaker
No, we did our best.
00:23:30
Speaker
So don't look, don't cheat.
00:23:31
Speaker
We just want to see it.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, it's an amazing object.
00:23:37
Speaker
It's so this is from this period of like Tiffany's greatest work.
00:23:41
Speaker
It takes 1879.
00:23:43
Speaker
At this point, like the connection to Japan is very tenuous.
00:23:48
Speaker
It's kind of like.
00:23:50
Speaker
You know, we started with something and now we've gone through a few different iterations and now we've got something totally different.
00:23:57
Speaker
But there's still some Japanese elements like the lobster you mentioned.
00:24:01
Speaker
Oh, OK.
00:24:02
Speaker
You know, the idea of like applying a decorative animal to the surface of your vessel is really Japanese.
00:24:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I guess it is.
00:24:11
Speaker
You can find...
00:24:12
Speaker
bugs, not on this piece, but on a lot of other pieces of this period.
00:24:17
Speaker
You find insects, dragonflies and butterflies.
00:24:20
Speaker
You can find lizards and geckos.
00:24:22
Speaker
And it leads directly into what we think of as art nouveau and the idea of incorporating decaying nature into art.
00:24:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:31
Speaker
which is thought of as being like a very French innovation.
00:24:35
Speaker
And it kind of is, but it really filters into France through these works by Tiffany.
00:24:40
Speaker
So just like giving silver, the history of silver, its proper place in the canon of art history.
00:24:47
Speaker
So it's a chocolate pot, which means it's meant for serving hot chocolate, which is awesome.
00:24:51
Speaker
And I don't have a chocolate pot and I really...
00:24:54
Speaker
could use one.
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:56
Speaker
Especially in the middle of winter.
00:24:57
Speaker
But what that means is a couple of things.
00:25:00
Speaker
So first of all, it has to have insulators on the handle.
00:25:04
Speaker
Because if you just made a chocolate pot out of silver or copper or whatever metal and made the handle out of the same metal and it was all connected together like normal, that handle is going to heat up super hot.
00:25:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:16
Speaker
As soon as you pour the hot wood into it.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:22
Speaker
And so they had to put in insulators.
00:25:24
Speaker
So a little piece of material that would stop the heat from transferring from the body into the handle.
00:25:31
Speaker
And in this case, it's ivory.
00:25:33
Speaker
Okay, okay.
00:25:33
Speaker
That explains a little ivory.
00:25:34
Speaker
There's two little ivory facets kind of connecting the handle.
00:25:39
Speaker
On the silver handle.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
00:25:41
Speaker
And then the same thing you mentioned, the ivory handle on top of the cover.
00:25:46
Speaker
And so the cover is attached to the body with a hinge.
00:25:50
Speaker
But then if you wanted to lift the cover again, you'd want something that wasn't burning hot to do that with.
00:25:55
Speaker
So you've got an unnecessarily big ivory handle on top.
00:26:00
Speaker
Kind of stuck there.
00:26:00
Speaker
But it looks pretty cool.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a joystick almost.
00:26:05
Speaker
Old school joystick.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's one way to avoid calling it phallic.
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah, but it's...
00:26:16
Speaker
The whole thing, again, it's kind of funky.
00:26:18
Speaker
I want to say something really quickly about the history of serving chocolate.
00:26:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:23
Speaker
Because there are chocolate pots made out of silver going back to the 17th century.
00:26:29
Speaker
I think the earliest English silver chocolate pot is 1670, give or take.
00:26:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:35
Speaker
Back then, it was this wildly exotic commodity that nobody really knew what to do with.
00:26:42
Speaker
Or like, what should the cultural norms around it be?
00:26:45
Speaker
The hot chocolate or the pots?
00:26:47
Speaker
Well, both.
00:26:48
Speaker
So like the chocolate comes to Europe and then they're like, how are we going to drink this?
00:26:53
Speaker
Like, what do we do with it?
00:26:55
Speaker
What kind of pot do we use?
00:26:56
Speaker
Like they had coffee pots, but again, coffee was still pretty new.
00:27:00
Speaker
And so it was this like wild west of like serving ware.
00:27:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:08
Speaker
And you have to picture it's all the aristocracy because these are the people who can afford to import the chocolate and the cocoa and so on.
00:27:14
Speaker
And so the richest people in Europe are all trying to figure out like, what shape of vessel should this amazingly expensive thing come out of?
00:27:24
Speaker
First world problems.
00:27:26
Speaker
Like they experiment around a bit and in the end, it ends up looking a lot like a coffee pot.
00:27:31
Speaker
But there's another wrinkle to this, which...
00:27:35
Speaker
has led to some pretty comical experiences for me.
00:27:39
Speaker
Because there's... The thing about serving hot chocolate is like today we have emulsifiers and you can just heat it up and serve it.
00:27:48
Speaker
But back then, they had to whip the chocolate up right before pouring it.
00:27:54
Speaker
Otherwise, it would have congealed and you'd get all the oils on the top and it would be this gross, slimy mess.
00:28:01
Speaker
And so what that meant was...
00:28:02
Speaker
You could prepare the chocolate in the kitchen, but you'd still have like out of sight of your fancy guests, but it would still have to be whipped up right there at the table where it's being served.
00:28:13
Speaker
And so they had these implements, these like, they are kind of like whisks that were called in England, they call them molinettes.
00:28:22
Speaker
And they are meant to be set into the chocolate pot and then kind of like whipped between your hands and
00:28:31
Speaker
spun between your hands to like whip up the chocolate into this frothy, delicious thing and then served.
00:28:37
Speaker
And because this was all being done in public, the best molinettes were made out of silver.
00:28:43
Speaker
They weren't made out of, you know, back in the kitchen, you'd have implements made out of wood or copper or whatever.
00:28:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:28:50
Speaker
We have a wooden one.
00:28:51
Speaker
We have the Mexican.
00:28:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:53
Speaker
Nice.
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah, they do.
00:28:54
Speaker
They still use them a lot in Mexico and also in India.
00:28:58
Speaker
And they're usually wooden.
00:28:59
Speaker
But, you know, if you were having a fancy aristocratic party at your aristocratic house in the English countryside in 1740, you needed a silver mall.
00:29:07
Speaker
You got to be silver, yeah.
00:29:10
Speaker
And so you got a silver mall in it.
00:29:13
Speaker
So these quickly become obsolete as like the customs change and emulsifiers are added.
00:29:19
Speaker
And so almost all of these Molinets were melted down.
00:29:23
Speaker
There are still a few that survive for whatever reason.
00:29:27
Speaker
And it's really cool to come across one because it's like, why wasn't this melted?
00:29:31
Speaker
It's like valuable silver that could have been made into coins or something like you could actually use for something.
00:29:38
Speaker
But instead...
00:29:39
Speaker
they kept it around and they were like, oh, this is whatever.
00:29:42
Speaker
This is cool.
00:29:43
Speaker
Like, we'll keep it.
00:29:43
Speaker
But because they're so rare, people don't know what they are.
00:29:47
Speaker
And so I've even seen an auction house in England, a major auction house, like a prestigious auction house that had one of these and one of their sales.
00:29:55
Speaker
But they cataloged it as a mace.
00:29:59
Speaker
Oh, like the weapon.
00:30:00
Speaker
Oh, interesting.
00:30:01
Speaker
And the way this one was made, it looked a little bit like a mace, like kind of ceremonial.
00:30:06
Speaker
But they were like, here's a weird-ass silver mace from 1730.
00:30:12
Speaker
You're going to war with chocolate.
00:30:15
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:30:16
Speaker
Exactly.
00:30:17
Speaker
And that's what they sold it as.
00:30:20
Speaker
And we bought it.
00:30:21
Speaker
Our gallery bought it.
00:30:22
Speaker
And we were like, we actually know what this is.
00:30:24
Speaker
And it's pretty cool.
00:30:25
Speaker
And there's this whole history behind it.
00:30:28
Speaker
In my opinion, I would rather make chocolate than war.
00:30:31
Speaker
So I think that's a good trade-off for everybody.
00:30:35
Speaker
Now, with the lobster, do they, this is a stupid question, do they eat, was lobster typically served with hot chocolate?
00:30:42
Speaker
Why lobster?
00:30:43
Speaker
I'll be honest with you.
00:30:45
Speaker
I am totally mystified by that.
00:30:48
Speaker
You know, like, no, I don't think chocolate and lobster were a regular combination.
00:30:55
Speaker
If they were, I would rather not know about that.
00:30:58
Speaker
I mean, we do like chocolate pretzels.
00:31:01
Speaker
Bananas.
00:31:02
Speaker
Frozen bananas.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah, chocolate frozen bananas.
00:31:05
Speaker
We do savory chocolate, right?
00:31:06
Speaker
I feel like there's a lot of savory.
00:31:08
Speaker
I've had chocolate covered some sort of worm.
00:31:12
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:31:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:13
Speaker
It wasn't bad.
00:31:13
Speaker
Was it crunchy?
00:31:15
Speaker
Slightly.
00:31:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:16
Speaker
Also kind of gooey.
00:31:17
Speaker
Did the chocolate... Oh.
00:31:19
Speaker
No, it's fine.
00:31:20
Speaker
Like so many countries eat it and it was totally fine.
00:31:23
Speaker
It's just like as a Westerner, you know.
00:31:26
Speaker
I think I would rather just eat a plain worm and then a piece of chocolate.
00:31:29
Speaker
Well, I've had that too.
00:31:31
Speaker
I will say the chocolate covered kind is a little better.
00:31:34
Speaker
In my humble opinion, yeah.
00:31:36
Speaker
Well, maybe Tiffany should have been putting worms on this chocolate pot instead of lobsters.
00:31:40
Speaker
No, I think somebody got excited about making some lobsters and they thought it looked cool.
00:31:44
Speaker
So they stuck it on.
00:31:46
Speaker
It does look awesome.
00:31:47
Speaker
But you're right.
00:31:47
Speaker
None of this seems like it should go together.
00:31:49
Speaker
But it's a beautiful, beautiful piece.
Challenges of Metal Restoration
00:31:51
Speaker
And you were talking about that process of turning the copper purple.
00:31:56
Speaker
How did that happen exactly?
00:31:57
Speaker
Do you know, like, what did they use?
00:31:59
Speaker
Because you did send some videos over for us to just go back.
00:32:02
Speaker
Which were awesome to watch the whole process.
00:32:05
Speaker
We know some information about the process and other things we don't know.
00:32:09
Speaker
And, you know, it was, of course, it was a huge trade secret for Tiffany and company.
00:32:14
Speaker
But there are some really dogged researchers, particularly a curator at the Met named Medill Harvey.
00:32:23
Speaker
And she's done some amazing work looking back through the Tiffany archives and trying to deduce both like from the notes that they took, but also from the objects themselves.
00:32:35
Speaker
Like what were the processes?
00:32:38
Speaker
What were they trying to achieve?
00:32:40
Speaker
And what did they achieve?
00:32:41
Speaker
And one thing that makes it really tricky is like,
00:32:44
Speaker
the color changes over time.
00:32:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:47
Speaker
Like these are really delicate processes.
00:32:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:50
Speaker
And over a hundred, 150 years,
00:32:52
Speaker
you know, the patination can change pretty dramatically.
00:32:56
Speaker
That makes sense.
00:32:57
Speaker
So like as a dealer, it's a huge thing to look out for when you're buying an object from this period that it's got good color.
00:33:05
Speaker
Like that makes a big difference to the commercial value of the object.
00:33:10
Speaker
This chocolate pot has really amazing, it's like one of the best preserved examples of this particular kind of patina that Tiffany was trying to manufacture.
00:33:20
Speaker
But if you look at a lot of pieces, like
00:33:22
Speaker
you'll see it's totally washed out or it's like pockmarked or it's turned like yellow, orangish or it's just splotchy across the surface.
00:33:34
Speaker
And, you know, I can't blame the object for that.
00:33:37
Speaker
Like it's, you know, it's lived a good life.
00:33:40
Speaker
And who doesn't show the signs of age?
00:33:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:43
Speaker
But in the very best examples like that chocolate pot, you can really see what they were trying to do.
00:33:48
Speaker
And that makes it a lot easier than to figure out like what was actually going on in the workshop.
00:33:54
Speaker
And so Medill and some of the Tiffany archivists like Moira Gallagher and some silversmiths like Ubaldo Vitale have really worked hard to try to figure out like
00:34:09
Speaker
what was actually done, what was actually made, what did this process actually look like.
00:34:14
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, it's super intricate, super complex.
00:34:18
Speaker
And, you know, it involves all kinds of chemicals, the names of which would frighten your listeners.
00:34:27
Speaker
You know, copper sulfates and ammonium chloride, you know,
00:34:31
Speaker
It's the kind of stuff that you probably don't have in your kitchen, I hope.
00:34:35
Speaker
Hope not, right?
00:34:36
Speaker
The video you sent us, it looked like alchemy.
00:34:39
Speaker
Oh my gosh, it did.
00:34:40
Speaker
Like a wizard working in there.
00:34:42
Speaker
That giant copper pot and then just watching the colors change.
00:34:46
Speaker
It was amazing.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:47
Speaker
No, I mean, it literally is alchemy.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:50
Speaker
And there are other things like, you know, we bought not too long ago this coffee pot that was made in 1893 by Tiffany.
00:34:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:00
Speaker
And it's a beautiful coffee pot in what they call the Saracen style.
00:35:04
Speaker
So it's very Middle Eastern inspired.
00:35:06
Speaker
And it's got this incredible enamel work that's very pale and delicate and light.
00:35:12
Speaker
And it gives the whole thing this very Islamic kind of look.
00:35:16
Speaker
But it's, I don't know, it's really intricately chased and embossed.
00:35:21
Speaker
And it's just a kind of a breathtaking piece.
00:35:24
Speaker
But when we bought it, it was polished up.
00:35:26
Speaker
The body of it was all polished up.
00:35:28
Speaker
to a mirror shine, like the way you think about silver.
00:35:33
Speaker
And so, we just assumed that's what it's supposed to look like, but it always looked a little bit pale, a little bit washed out.
00:35:38
Speaker
And then we came across this article from 1893 when this piece was shown in Chicago at the Columbian Exposition.
00:35:47
Speaker
And the person who wrote this article was writing about all the Tiffany silver at the Columbian Exposition.
00:35:51
Speaker
And they said, you know, they admired the
00:35:55
Speaker
patinated dark gunmetal color of the silver.
00:35:58
Speaker
And we realized that this silver, this coffee pot was not meant to be a mirror polished silver.
00:36:05
Speaker
It was meant to be a sort of tarnished dark gray color, which is what happens when you don't take care of your silver, right?
00:36:13
Speaker
Like it tarnishes.
00:36:14
Speaker
But in this case, it was intentional and that was supposed to create this great color contrast and
00:36:19
Speaker
with the pale hues of the enamels.
00:36:21
Speaker
And so we actually artificially tarnished it.
00:36:25
Speaker
Oh, nice.
00:36:26
Speaker
Which you can do using like sulfuric compounds, which smell like absolute garbage.
00:36:33
Speaker
We have a river that smells like that.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah, no, but it just had this magical effect.
00:36:40
Speaker
Like snap your fingers and suddenly this piece looks the way it was meant to look.
00:36:45
Speaker
And it just sang.
00:36:46
Speaker
Wow.
00:36:46
Speaker
You'll have to send us a photograph of that.
00:36:48
Speaker
We'd love to see it.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:50
Speaker
We're texture heads here, I guess, like artist texture heads.
00:36:54
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:54
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:55
Speaker
We're very pro texture.
00:36:57
Speaker
Pro patina.
00:36:58
Speaker
So so you were able to restore that coffee pot.
00:37:03
Speaker
But can you restore patina?
00:37:06
Speaker
Like if this if someone were to find this coffee, coffee pot, chocolate pot like 100 years from now and it does not look like it does now, would they be able to to restore the patina?
00:37:16
Speaker
And how close could you get it to looking that purple?
00:37:20
Speaker
Not at all.
00:37:21
Speaker
I know we're talking about copper, but with all kinds of metals, patina is super subtle and super important.
00:37:30
Speaker
The worst thing that you can do to a beautiful piece of antique silver is to over polish it.
00:37:36
Speaker
And I've seen it happen so many times that you've got this object and somebody just goes at it.
00:37:41
Speaker
with elbow grease.
00:37:42
Speaker
And they like, they want it to look like a mirror and they get what they want.
00:37:45
Speaker
It looks like a mirror and it looks like it was made yesterday.
00:37:48
Speaker
And it's like all, it feels like the whole history of it has kind of been erased.
00:37:52
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:37:53
Speaker
naturally over time.
00:37:54
Speaker
And in the course of daily use, these objects will pick up little imperfections, quote unquote, that are like, you know, tiny little pockmarks in the surface.
00:38:05
Speaker
They're not sometimes not even visible to the naked eye, but they affect the way that light reflects and reflects off of it.
00:38:13
Speaker
And so over time, these accumulate and they can transform the color of the object into something that is just magical, that is like
00:38:22
Speaker
dark and rich and deep and complex.
00:38:25
Speaker
And all of that can be ruined in an incredibly short amount of time by somebody who's like overzealous with a Brillo pad.
00:38:33
Speaker
So with the copper, it's the same, but even worse because it's so much more delicate and sensitive.
00:38:40
Speaker
You know, it's just incredibly rare to find a piece with a color like this one, like this chocolate pot.
00:38:46
Speaker
That's, again, like the day it came out of the workshop.
00:38:49
Speaker
That's like a one in a thousand kind of effect.
00:38:53
Speaker
I said dusty grape, but I'm sick into it.
00:38:55
Speaker
But it's also like, it's like the most beautiful dusty grape.
00:38:59
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciate it like a thousand times more now knowing what I know, what I've just learned about silver.
00:39:04
Speaker
So thank you for that.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's fantastic.
00:39:07
Speaker
We need to have you come along with us on a journey to a museum so you can explain a lot of the objects we look at and just are mesmerized by.
00:39:16
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes the plaques don't tell you enough.
00:39:19
Speaker
I have so many questions.
00:39:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's impossible.
00:39:22
Speaker
It's like, you know, you could write a book about an object like this.
00:39:26
Speaker
The good news is that it's not just museums.
00:39:28
Speaker
There are dealers and galleries that have pieces like this.
00:39:32
Speaker
I mean, it's pretty rare to have a piece like this, but it does happen.
Interactive Experiences at Shrub Soul
00:39:37
Speaker
And in our shop, you can just ring the doorbell and
00:39:40
Speaker
come on in.
00:39:41
Speaker
And we've got like an incredible array of hundreds of objects from all different periods and styles.
00:39:48
Speaker
And we're there to just hang out and to answer questions about it and show you things that you haven't seen before.
00:39:54
Speaker
And you can pick it up and hold it.
00:39:55
Speaker
And hell, you know, if you're thirsty, I'll pour you a glass of water in a 16th century beaker.
00:40:01
Speaker
You're going to take a mace and make us some chocolate, hot chocolate.
00:40:04
Speaker
That's right.
00:40:05
Speaker
That's right.
00:40:06
Speaker
Personalized experience.
00:40:07
Speaker
I really appreciate that.
00:40:09
Speaker
Well, Ben, thank you.
00:40:11
Speaker
This was a journey.
00:40:12
Speaker
We really enjoyed it.
00:40:13
Speaker
Tell us more about your podcast.
00:40:14
Speaker
Where would you have our listeners start if there was one episode you would like them to check out first?
Exploring Art History Through Podcasting
00:40:20
Speaker
So again, the podcast is all about storytelling.
00:40:23
Speaker
So each episode focuses on a particular object and all of the
00:40:28
Speaker
wild and unpredictable and often beautiful and surprising stories that revolve around these things and what they can tell us about where they came from and what they've experienced and who's interacted with them.
00:40:42
Speaker
I think the work that I'm proudest of is actually a three-part series that we did called The Story of Belizear.
00:40:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:52
Speaker
And it was about a painting.
00:40:54
Speaker
which is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but which connects us to this incredibly challenging and intricate and troubling history set in New Orleans.
00:41:09
Speaker
And it reveals so much about society, not just when it was painted in the 1830s, but in
00:41:15
Speaker
decade by decade ever since you know the the experiences that this painting has had the trials that it's been through and how it ended up where it did it sends chills up my spine so look that one up and yeah like it you know keep listening i haven't gotten to that one yet i started at the most recent and kept going but we will definitely jump to that one that's exciting yeah it's worth skipping too all right all right
00:41:39
Speaker
But the other thing is, I would just say for listeners, we've covered so many different types of objects, so many different periods from ancient Egypt and ancient Rome to even contemporary works and everything in between.
00:41:55
Speaker
So if there's some period of history that you're interested in or some type of object that you're curious about, look it up.
00:42:02
Speaker
There's a pretty decent chance we've done an episode about something kind of like that.
00:42:07
Speaker
Yeah, my hope is for it to be like fun and educational and eventually inspire people to look at objects that they might not have encountered otherwise and like think about them in a new way.
00:42:19
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:42:20
Speaker
Looking, thinking.
00:42:21
Speaker
We love that.
00:42:22
Speaker
Looking, thinking, making.
00:42:25
Speaker
Sounds like a new Daft Punk song.
00:42:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:42:30
Speaker
It's got to put the vocal effects on there.
00:42:56
Speaker
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Speaker
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