Lecture:  Howell & James of London - Retailing the Aesthetic Movement

Glessner House Museum coach house

$10 per person / $8 for museum members, reservations required.  Click here for complete details.

The period from 1860 to the early 1890s witnessed the flourishing of the Aesthetic Movement, a cult of beauty that emphasized art in the production of ceramics, furniture, textiles, wallpaper, and other furnishings.  Magazines, exhibitions and new retail venues, including department stores, spread Aesthetic Movement ideas and furnishings to a wide public in both Britain and the United States.  This presentation, by independent scholar and design historian Joan Maria Hansen, will explore the activities of the prominent London emporium Howell & James, which played a vital role in spreading Aesthetic Movement ideals, particularly by extensively marketing art pottery and through their classes and exhibitions of china painting.  Although the Glessners did not shop at the Howell & James store, they were vitally interested in ceramics.  After the lecture, Ms. Hansen will take attendees through the museum to look at some pieces that the Glessners collected during the period that reflect this surge of interest in the creation and collection of ceramic objects.