Decorative arts expand considerably our understanding of the relationship between history, technology, economics, and aesthetics.  Salt cellars, tea pots, and sugar bowls by the manufactories of Sèvres and Meissen illustrate the growth of these commodities in the eighteenth century and the rituals and ceremonies that arose around their consumption. Examples of furniture and accessories by Gustav Stickley, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Louis Comfort Tiffany show the contributions of American artists to arts and crafts and art nouveau, two movements that embraced the notion that art should be integrated into everyday life. Modernist ideas, such as form follows function, appear in the geometric patterns of El Lissitsky's plate (1923), Otto Lindig's cup and saucer (1923) and Margarete Haymann-Marks' covered server (ca. 1930).  

The Museum continues to add to its choice holdings of decorative arts primarily through the generosity of Virginia A. Marten, whose contributions of eighteenth-century porcelain have greatly enhanced the collections.

https://decorativearts.snitemuseum.org/

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Marten Collection Catalogue Published

View catalog online (5.7 MB PDF): A Taste for Porcelain: The Virginia A. Marten Collection of Decorative Art

In 2014 the Snite Museum published A Taste for Porcelain: The Virginia A. Marten Collection of Decorative Arts.  This collection catalogue features twenty-two eighteenth-century decorative artworks assembled over twenty-two years by Emeritus Curator of Western Art Stephen J. Spiro and was generously supported by Snite Museum Advisory Council member Virginia Marten.  Not only have Marten’s benefactions allowed the Snite Museum of Art to create yet another area of collection strength, but The Virginia A. Marten Endowment assures continuing development of the collection––as well as obsolescence of this publication.

World-renowned scholars of French art Dr. Gabriel P. Weisberg and Yvonne Weisberg undertook the catalogue project with their typical passion and industry.  Over the course of two summers they worked in the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory Archives in Sèvres assessing documents, drawings, photographs, and manuscripts linked with artworks in the Marten Collection. The Weisbergs also had opportunity to examine similar pieces in the Sèvres National Ceramic Museum including alternate pieces linked to those in the Marten Collection. In addition, research was conducted in the library at the Museum of the Decorative Arts, Paris.

Margaretta Higgins art history graduate intern Rachel Schmid, MA ’13, prepared essays on seven works created by the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory, under the direction of Snite Museum Curator of European Art Cheryl Snay. Research Associate Elizabeth Sullivan, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, prepared entries on other German, as well as Italian and British, artworks within the Marten Collection.