It’s hard not to love Sevres Porcelain, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a stunning collection.  From the moment you see it, you can sense it’s aristocratic roots. The exquisite shapes and ornate details, the celestial blue color, the gilding, it all screams Royalty.

Extraordinarily costly and fragile, objects produced at Sevres were prized as status symbols and exchanged as diplomatic gifts by their royal and aristocratic owners. While some pieces  possess seemingly functional forms, many were intended solely for display.  Made from soft-paste porcelain that was difficult to manipulate and fire, it renders the manufactory’s  achievements all the more impressive. Bold innovative models, such as the pink elephant vase shown above, were regularly introduced in the realm of decorative objects. Did I mention that we’re talking about porcelain made over 250 years ago? The turquoise blue pieces, know as celestial blue,  date to about 1753 when they made their debut for Louis XV. Nearly five hundred pieces in all, were created for his royal highness in this debut collection.

Sevres was founded in 1738. In 1740, the Vincennes manufactory was created with the support of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour.  In 1756, the factory moved to Sevres, near Madame de Pompadour’s Bellevue Palace, and became the Royal factory in 1759. After the French Revolution the factory was no longer a royal enterprise, and not surprisingly lost much of it’s clientele. In 1800 Alexandre Brongniart, age 30,  was appointed as the administrator of the factory, a position he held until his death in 1847.  The factory is now run by the Ministry of Culture, and continues to be located in Sevres France.

I found this great video with Dame Rosalind Savill at Toronto’s Gardiner Museum. Watch as she discusses just how many artisans are required to create this stunning Chinoiserie Sevres Porcelain piece… but I will warn you, the table the vase is sitting on wobbles just a tad more than it should.

There’s another place in Las Vegas to see Chihuly Glass besides the famed ceiling installation at the Bellagio Hotel.  A dedicated gallery space at the newer ARIA Hotel, on Gallery Row,  features his work exclusively.  Chandeliers, paintings, wall mounted installations, there’s pieces from all of his famous genres.

As child growing up in the Pacific Northwest,  words like Chihuly and Pilchuck School of Glass, are just part of the local vernacular. You learn at a very young age who he is and what he’s all about, and it’s a great source of local pride. I remember how thrilled I was to take my five year old niece to an exhibition of his work at the Seattle Art Museum in 1990, their first one man exhibition in the newly opened museum.  For an adult it was awe inspiring, so I can only image how a five year old must have viewed the massive installation of wall mounted works, and multiply tall pedestals topped with individual blown glass pieces. It was like being in a field of flowers, ala Alice in Wonderland.

It’s been even more remarkable to watch the trajectory of Dale Chihuly’s career with installations such as his 1995  ‘Chihuly over Venice’, or the 1999 ‘Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem’,  and the 2005 ‘Chihuly at Kew’ (Kew Gardens London). By taking his works out of traditional home and gallery spaces, and installing it in natural environments, he pushes and expands the boundaries of how we experience the reflective and transparent nature of glass.  These environments can’t be controlled, which is a sign of confidence in what he’s produced. He’s opening it up to the unexpected and allowing them to simply be.

During my years as a hairdresser in Seattle, I had a client who was going though a divorce. One of the biggest irritations about her divorce was that she was loosing ‘the Chihuly’s’. Her husband had bought them through his business, therefore they were business assets, not community property. During their years together, the pieces appreciated tremendously, and were now cost prohibitive to replace. I remember seeing small works for sale in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art  Museum Store over a decade ago. Starting price: $3500. And if I remember correctly, the pieces that I saw at the Shops at Wailea in Maui were $30,000 – $40,000. I can only imagine what one of those tremendous chandeliers must cost today.   I didn’t have the nerve to ask for pricing at the Vegas Boutique… you know the old adage: If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it. But that shouldn’t stop you from walking into the store and absorbing some of the good mojo emanating from his work. The stores sales associate was more than gracious in allowing us to look around and take photos , and was more than happy to answer any questions we had.

Crystal Place, ARIA Hotel, Las Vegas… the other place Chihuly lives in Las Vegas.