| | Drink
beer from Baccarat? Why not? The deep amber color of a dark German beer with its
rich head of foam is certainly more inviting. And what better way to enjoy, albeit
on the tube, the playoff games this January. Football on TV in an antique shop?
You bet, I remember watching Y. A. Tittle play while in high school. Any one that
knows me or has visited MiRIAMGREEN during the season, knows that while Gilbert&Sullivan
may be playing on the Bose stereo in the main gallery, an old diminutive
(10") black&white RCA with very poor reception, is hooked up in the book room,
where I am usually glued to the game. Any game. College or NFL, I love football,
love watching a good game. But just football. And football is almost over. We
have already passed the best weekends-multiple games on Saturday and Sunday; we
have just three games left, not counting the pro-bowl. I am already in withdrawal.
So
this past weekend, when two teams I really like played each other, my conflicted
loyalties notwithstanding, my eye fell upon these wafer thin crystal goblets in
a display case. I had an uneven number set of wondrously delicate Baccarat (in
the Montaigne Optic pattern, never used, still wrapped with yellow newspapers
from the 1930s when I unpacked them). Montaigne Optic is a pattern still in production
because of its enormous appeal, though you can tell a stem, even a Baccarat glass,
that was blown yesterday from one blown seventy-five years ago. I had showed
these glasses several times to people, always marveling at their elegant fluidity,
their sound, their feel. Remembering when I first unpacked the 26 pieces of assorted
sizes and washed them, o so carefully, that they were literally alive in the sink.
I decided to retire a single water goblet -to enjoy my beer.
We have all
been reminded by events of this past September how precious life truly is, how
fragile we are, and that time never stops. Perhaps it is this fragility that makes
us appreciate the antique, something made in previous centuries that becomes a
bridge from the past to the present. And here in our present we should use them--with
some reservations*--all the time, rather than on occasion.
If you
collect something meant to be used, use it. What a pleasure to share your passion
and treasures with your intimate and extended family. Not just entertaining. While
daily use of antiques demands a heightened sense of presence, as in PAY ATTENTION
ALWAYS, it becomes second nature to live with your collections. What better way
to teach children an appreciation of art and history, and an etiquette of responsibility,
than to live with antiques. Those who collect "antiques-of-the- table" can appreciate
the elegance of setting a table with vintage china, glassware, sterling, etc.
Isn't this appreciation well worth the extra time and attention needed in careful
clean up? And if something breaks, so what, you find another. Isn't the chase
the greater part of a true passion of collecting?
Delight of life takes
many forms-family, sports, travel, hobby, career. Delight is an antidote to vexation,
the opposite of a head-ache. Delight is an active not a passive state, one that
offers 'charge with electricity'. Delight is to be captured, transported even.
Beauty is what delights the eye. We all need and profit from our delight. The
collector who delights in their collections daily, by appreciation, and by use,
has a special appreciation of time, time of the object, that is an inseparable
personality of their antiques. Time does not stop so make full use of all of it.
Eating and drinking from
your antiques is
Drink beer out of Baccarat?
At this time and place, out of what else would you drink? Susan
Alon is proprietor of MiRIAMGREEN Antiquarian Bookshop & Gallery located in
the downtown Clinton Historic district (Rt One). She is a professional appraiser,
former curator and rare book librarian, and is one dealer that provides as much
detail as possible-for her the research is one of the most satisfying parts. | |
