I'm toying with ideas on which to base my history and one of them is this: I could trace the history of one of the Vizagapatam ivory-work cabinets:
1. An 18th century one which is presently at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The path the piece followed from owner to owner is well documented. It was apparently commissioned by a Muslim and can be traced back through six generations of the family. The name of the ship (The United States) on which it was brought from India to America, when it arrived in Philadelphia (Sept. 13, 1785), and how it descended over time through the family of socialite Anne Willing Bingham (1764-1801), who counted both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson among her acquaintances, are all there.
2. The second one is the ornate writing and dressing table that was auctioned away by Lily Safra. I had written about it in a previous blog.
Both stories sound quite good, but how much of the city's history do they cover and what's the scope of the sotries is, I'm not very sure.
1. An 18th century one which is presently at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The path the piece followed from owner to owner is well documented. It was apparently commissioned by a Muslim and can be traced back through six generations of the family. The name of the ship (The United States) on which it was brought from India to America, when it arrived in Philadelphia (Sept. 13, 1785), and how it descended over time through the family of socialite Anne Willing Bingham (1764-1801), who counted both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson among her acquaintances, are all there.
2. The second one is the ornate writing and dressing table that was auctioned away by Lily Safra. I had written about it in a previous blog.
Both stories sound quite good, but how much of the city's history do they cover and what's the scope of the sotries is, I'm not very sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment