It’s really kind of incredible to think how much stuff is still out there. Art treasures in private collections, historical documents in archives, that simply haven’t come to light in terms of broader, more widespread awareness. But even more than that, things hidden away, that perhaps even their owners don’t even know about. Every now and then, we hear some incredible stories about these sorts of finds and discoveries… In a way, it’s actually encouraging, in that whenever you think that a certain type of artifact or documentation might not exist anymore, there’s actually the possibility it just might still be out there.
Messy Nessy chic, a blog I hadn’t heard about until now but which looks like it has some pretty cool content, posted back in May (I was just pointed to the link the other day) about a Parisian apartment left untouched for 70 years and just recently re-opened.
The owner fled Paris just before World War II broke out, and never returned; somehow, the apartment remained unopened, untouched, for all this time. That is, until, following her death at the age of 91 a few years ago, her heirs finally opened up the apartment, and discovered what was inside. Beautiful now-quite-antique furniture, a Micky Mouse stuffed toy, a taxidermied emu or rhea or the like, and all sorts of other things, including a rather special painting.
The Messy Nessy Chic blog post has some incredible pictures of this time capsule of an upclass 1930s Paris apartment.
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The Freer|Sackler, meanwhile, has posted a blog post about the apartment of art collector Dr. Paul Singer, which some members of the staff had the opportunity to visit way back in 1998.
Dr. Singer keeps more than five thousand objects, apparently, in his New Jersey apartment, a collection which we are told is one of the largest and most important private collections of Chinese objects in the United States.
I’m not sure there’s much to say here, except to invite you to click through to the F|S blog post, which has a nice photo of the apartment, and to say that I’ve been fortunate to visit the homes of an art collector or two, and that it’s always a fun and breathtaking experience. Some people have such beautiful homes, and such incredible collections; it’s something I look forward to doing more often in the future.
An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a colleague who had been conducting
a little homework on this. And he in fact ordered me dinner because I discovered it for him.
.. lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!
! But yeah, thanks for spending time to discuss this topic here on your web page.