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Cooper Hewitt:
Sorting Through a Collection and Highlighting Nature

he Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is the only On these pages are
museum in the United States devoted exclusively to historical selections from the exhibit,
Tand contemporary design, and is the steward of one of the most showing the variety of
diverse and comprehensive design collections in existence – more than designed objects created
210,000 design objects spanning thirty centuries. From ancient textiles during this influential
and works on paper to icons of modern design and cutting-edge time in botanical
technologies, Cooper Hewitt’s collection serves as inspiration for beauty. Botanical
creative work of all kinds and tells the story of design’s paramount Expressions is on
importance in improving our world. view virtually, and
hopefully in person
as the summer
Curating a Collection progresses, through
One of their current exhibitions, titled Botanical Expressions, pulls
together a carefully curated selection of objects reflecting the inspiration the 25th of January,
felt at the turn of the 20th century, when the intersection of botanical 2021. Visit by
study with design practice stimulated an array of plant forms and motifs clicking here:
Cooper Hewitt
in furnishings, glassware, ceramics, textiles, and more. Botanical
Expressions reveals how designers, inspired by nature and informed by
scientific knowledge, created vibrant new designs around the world. This plate was made by
Blossoming vases, plantlike stuctures, fanciful garden illustrations, and a Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory,
diversity of vegetal and floral patterns reveal how nature and design dated 1753–58 and we acquired it in
dynamically merged. An increasing number of designers, trained as 1957. Its medium is soft-paste porcelain, overglaze enamels. The Chelsea
botanists, advocated for the beauty and order of nature’s systems, colors, Porcelain Manufactory, established in London in 1745, was a short
and patterns. Many manufacturers operated in proximity to gardens for walk from the Chelsea Physic Garden, where the firm’s painters had
natural study and stocked books of botanical illustrations as resources access to an abundance of plants for in-person study. The book Figures
for their designers. These primary sources, on loan from Smithsonian of the Most Beautiful… contains drawings of more than 300 specimens
Libraries, appear alongside the objects they influenced. of plants from the Chelsea Physic Garden, which were referenced for
Since the 19th century, the garden was often seen as a refuge from the decoration on these ten plates. While fashionable in subject matter
industry and a natural source of plenty and pleasure. This history of and style, flowers, insects, and leaves also played a practical role to
botanical expressions in design illuminates a reflection on the critical disguise flaws and imperfections in the plates’ delicate porcelain
role of nature within our world. and glaze.

At left is a Sidewall. It was designed
by William Morris and manufactured by
Jeffrey & Company. We acquired it in
1941. Its medium is block-printed
paper. Morris held a fondness for birds,
to the dismay of his gardener. This pat-
tern depicts Morris’s own view of the
garden at Red House, where he watched
birds dart through the rose trellises.
Philip Webb, Morris’s collaborator on
the design for the garden at Red House,
drew the birds in this piece.
At right is a Cushion cover. It was
designed by William Morris and
embroidered by Annie-May Hegeman.
It is dated late 19th century and the
museum acquired it in 1944. Its medi-
um is cotton, mercerized cotton and its
technique is plain weave embroidered with running (darning), stem, couching stitches, laid
work over surface satin. Advances in transportation, botany, and technology allowed florists
of the late 19th century to create elaborate new hybrid and hothouse cultivars. The single row
of petals on Morris’s wild roses stands in contrast to these showy blooms and reflects his
interest in valorizing indigenous plants.

34 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles