Author: Jules Long

This week’s post is brought to you by Jules Long, a second year Master’s student in the Museum Studies and History program at Tufts.

Just two miles from Tufts University is Harvard’s Museum of Natural History, which hosts the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants. This unique collection encompasses around 4,300 glass models of botanical specimens, from leaves and flowers to plant organ slices and diseased fruit. The collection is not only unique but also highly historic; the models were created by German glassmakers Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka between 1887 and 1936. The collection’s historicalness and fragility present a number of challenges when it comes to displaying, storing, and conserving the objects.

Perhaps the most obvious challenge is safely storing and displaying the models. Although the glass models often have wire supports inside, that does not prevent damage to the many exquisite details and components of the models. In behind-the-scenes storage, the objects can be carefully wrapped and supported in boxes. However, on exhibit, the models are subject to vibrations and jostling caused by visitors. The prevent damage, the objects are padded with discreet (but visible) ethafoam blocks and carefully wired and mounted to the display board. In addition, signs in the gallery ask visitors to avoid touching the display cases, and a staffmember or volunteer is usually present to keep an eye on visitor behavior.

In 2016, Harvard took on the task of conserving the collection. The models are colored with historical pigments, either within the glass itself or as a coating (of either melted glass or metal oxides) applied after shaping. Over time, the pigments fade and dirt (including, in the past, soot from coal furnaces) accumulates on the objects. Conservators used a special solvent that picked up soot and dirt but not impact any water-soluble ink. Conservators also found that over time, the coating of some objects had begun peeling away from the glass, especially where animal glue had been used to attach components. Conservators worked to restore those areas as best as possible.

In addition to the conservation in 2016, the public-facing exhibit for the collection was refurbished and redesigned. The original antique look of the gallery was retained, but the cabinets were cleaned and refinished, and the glass was replaced to ensure that the objects could be clearly viewed. To prevent fading of the pigments, the light in the public exhibit is kept very low. The gallery was also reinterpreted and laid out in a way that curators believed would be more conducive to both understanding and appreciating the collection. This organization included organizing the specimens by species and genus, and new signage was placed to explain how and why the models were created. The new gallery is not able to host as many objects at a time as the old gallery, but it does enable the museum to put on rotating exhibits of various pieces that are not normally visible to the public, such as the temporary exhibit of “rotten apples” currently on exhibit at the museum. Access to objects not on display is restricted, but may be consulted by appointment if permission is received to do so.

This post comes from Jules Long, a student in the Tufts History and Museum Studies program.

On October 19, 2017, an ancient Roman ship’s floor mosaic—which had been turned into a coffee table—was repatriated to Italy in a ceremony held by Italian and American officials. The 2,000-year-old mosaic had been purchased by an antiquities dealer after its theft from a museum during World War II. Despite the reluctance of the purchaser to let go of the piece, the mosaic’s repatriation is appropriate and follows international cultural property laws and guidelines.

The mosaic, a colorful and distinctive work made from marble, serpentine, and porphyry, once adorned one of Roman Emperor Caligula’s “pleasure boats” used on the holy Lake Nemi in the suburbs of Rome, circa 35 C.E. After the emperor was assassinated in 41 C.E., two of the large boats were purposely sunk to the bottom of the lake, where they remained for nearly two thousand years, despite several attempts to raise the wrecks. Finally, in the 1930s, the wrecks were removed to dry land, conserved, and displayed in the Museo delle Navi (Museum of the Roman Ships) in Nemi. The ships and their associated objects, including the mosaic, are well documented through photographs from this time. However, the mosaic’s movements after that time are a bit of a mystery, as the mosaic disappeared around the time of World War II, when the museum was used as a bomb shelter for both civilians and German soldiers. In May of 1944, the museum suffered minor damage from an Allied air raid, which caused the German soldiers to retreat. It is believed the soldiers set the ships on fire as they let, destroying the priceless artifacts inside the museum but leaving the building’s concrete structure intact.

In September 2017, the mosaic was discovered in the New York City apartment of antiquities dealer Helen Fioratti. Fioratti had bought the piece from an “aristocratic” Italian family in the 1960s or 70s. She had taken the mosaic and turned it into a coffee table to adorn her home. She was aware that the piece was old and had been found in Lake Nemi, but she believed that the person she bought it from owned it and neglected to do any further provenance research. As an antiquities dealer, the name of Lake Nemi should have been a red flag for her about the origins of the piece. However, she apparently believed ignorance is bliss and had no concern whatsoever about the provenance of the piece because it was prominently displayed in a magazine piece in the Architectural Digest in March 1991—the article that likely led authorities to search Fioratti’s home in the first place. (Fioratti had already run afoul of the law several years earlier when she pled guilty to fraud and tax evasion, which also put increased scrutiny on her business.)

Extensive documentation on the Nemi ships, which included a photograph of the mosaic, was evidence that the mosaic had been stolen from the museum itself around World War II. However, even if the piece had been retrieved directly from the lake by private individuals, as Fioratti apparently believed, the object clearly falls under the category of “cultural property” as defined by UNESCO’s 1970 Convention on the Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property, since it was an element of an archaeological site that was dismembered and it is an antiquity older (by two millennia) than 100 years. Article 7 of the convention allows Italy to recover and return stolen cultural property. With those two aspects in mind, and with an eye on the material and time costs of a lengthy court battle, Fioratti did not put up a fight when the mosaic was seized. Nor will the Manhattan district attorney’s office press criminal charges against Fioratti, as it is not worth the cost when she willingly relinquished the object. However, Fioratti told the press, “I don’t know if anyone is going to see it as much as they did in my place. I had people who were interested in antiquities admiring it in my home all the time. Now it will be in a museum with a lot of other things.”

In reality, however, far more people will be able to see the striking mosaic where it belongs, in restored Museo delle Navi on the edge of the sacred Lake Nemi, than would ever be able to see it as a bling object in her private apartment. It’s just too bad that the mosaic has been changed from its original form—an incredible piece of art—into a modern piece of furniture. I have confidence, however, that the museum staff will be able to determine the piece’s fate appropriately—either conservation to try to return the mosaic to its original state or leaving it as it is to prevent additional damage.