Paperweight c. 1848 - 1855

This glass paperweight, made by the Compagnie de Saint Louis, encapsulates a charming bouquet of flowers. Within its clear, protective dome, roses and other blooms are forever preserved. Flowers, of course, are ancient symbols of beauty, love, and the fleeting nature of life, but contained within glass, the symbol takes on a new dimension. Think of the vanitas paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, where flowers, often on the verge of wilting, served as reminders of mortality. Here, the glass bubble halts decay, creating a kind of stasis. This act of preservation is a recurring motif in art, with roots in the reliquaries of the medieval period, where fragments of saints were enshrined in precious materials. Is there a similar desire to capture and hold onto beauty in this paperweight? Perhaps it touches on our collective yearning to hold onto something beautiful, to defy time, even as time inevitably marches on. The act of encasing a symbol is a way to create a time capsule, in an effort to immortalize the present moment.