The Craft of Looking
Will Strafford, Deputy Chairman and Senior International Specialist in Christie’s European Furniture and Decorative Arts department, spends part of his working life lying on warehouse floors, looking beneath furniture, pulling out drawers, and taking apart ornaments to understand how a piece was made. Far from the auctioneer’s rostrum and the crowded saleroom, this is where […]
Ngatu, the Tongan cloth that keeps the record
By Catherine Jacobi A comet, a schoolboy king and a Spitfire named for a queen: how the women of Tonga turned barkcloth into a record of the moments their islands chose to remember. Photo: James Alcock, 2023. © Australian Museum. On the morning of June 9, 2023, two cranes lifted a heavy roll from the […]