Carafe c. 1902

This delicate, cut-glass carafe, now residing at the Art Institute of Chicago, speaks volumes about the social rituals and material culture of its time. Though anonymous, the artisan who crafted this object was surely a product of a specific economic context, likely from the 18th or 19th century, when such refined glassware became a mark of gentility and domestic comfort. The act of drinking, and serving drinks, was elevated through such objects; displaying your wealth and knowledge of social etiquette. The absence of a known creator also underlines the position of craftspeople who often remained outside the mainstream art historical canon, despite their essential role in producing the objects that populated domestic and public life. Historians turn to sources such as trade records, etiquette guides, and visual representations of domestic interiors to tease out the full cultural meaning of objects such as this. We come to see how art is always embedded in a web of social and institutional relations.