The day of Ms Keogh's
recertification examination was chilly and rainy. The
most I could do to reduce the stress was to keep her
company and offer the convenience of driving her
door-to-door. The examination was to be given at The
Curtis Center, formerly the Curtis Building, located
on the corner of Sixth and Walnut. The building faces
Independence Hall, the eighteenth century State House
of the Province of Pennsylvania, where my Nation's
"Declaration of Independence" and its
"Constitution" were hammered into shape.
We arrived into Center City with time to spare. I
pulled into an empty spot and waited while Ms Keogh
checked out the building and made sure she knew where
the test was to be given. Since we had extra time,
she thought we might first have coffee together. I
didn't wait long when she came rushing back in a
flurry of excitement. "It's here!" she
declared, "the Tiffany mosaic is here! You've
got to come in and see it."
I had forgotten about the Tiffany mosaic. It had been
in the news recently. The building's owner, Jack
Merriam, had died in 1997. He had saved the building
from the wrecking ball and had it refurbished in
1984. His wife, executor of her husband's estate, was
trying to sell the mosaic to Steve Wynn, a Las Vegas
casino owner. A legal battle ensued as the local
contingent of art lovers and preservationist went up
in arms and the Philadelphia Historical Commission,
who already certified the building's historical
importance, now considered this interior decoration
as integral to the building's architecture. On
learning the news, I had intended to seek out the
mosaic and see it before it was possibly gone. It
then slipped from my mind until Ms Keogh came
bustling back to the car announcing her discovery.
We found a legal place to park, popped quarters into
the meter, and together forsook coffee to see the
mosaic.
The stone façade of The Curtis Center appeared like
a Greek temple with pairs of columns, the higher
stories being of brick. This was formerly the home of
the Curtis Publishing Company. Cyrus H. K. Curtis
made his fortune launching the Ladies' Home Journal
in the late nineteenth century when women were first
entering the marketplace en masse as shoppers. Before
that century was over he added to that success by
buying the Pennsylvania Gazette, a journal originally
begun by Benjamin Franklin, which then became the
extremely famous The Saturday Evening Post.
Ms Keogh vigorously pulled me by the hand up the
front staircase and into the small marble lobby of
The Curtis Center, and there it was, The Dream Garden
[1916]. Over 100,000 tiles of Favrile Glass from the
Tiffany Studios formed a landscape painting fifteen
feet high and forty-nine feet across, set back behind
a small fountain. It is a view looking out from a
hardwood forest to a valley and waterfall between
high mountains. Among the flowers in the foreground
were two short pedestals carved with matching comic
faces that had immense grins, a style instantly
recognizable as that of Maxfield Parrish, one of the
Curtis publications most famous illustrators. Louis
Comfort Tiffany based his glass mosaic on an original
painting by Parrish. Another clue was the gradients
of blue tiles that made up the sky.
I sat for a time on a marble bench with a high back
that faced the mosaic. It was terribly uncomfortable,
with a sharp ridge cutting across my back and
countering the calming affect of the mosaic, but I
had no other complaint. Indeed, I am happy to report
that signs were posted announcing The Dream Garden,
perhaps the best of Tiffany's mosaics, had been saved
and would remain where we found it, and in the care
of Ms Keogh's second alma mater, the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts.
As there was still time before her exam would
commence, we further explored The Curtis Center. My
own interest included a small room that extended out
into the lobby from the adjacent office, presently a
bank. The wall of the room had large stain glass
windows with images of the history of printing. They
included the famous printer's marks of Aldus
Manutius, William Caxton, William Morris, and one I
couldn't identify.
Ms Keogh led me past the elevator banks and into the
belly of building. I felt a rush when we came out of
a small and narrow place to enter an immense atrium
rising more than ten stories high. This hollow core
was at an earlier time filled with a giant printing
press. Now it is a vast public space occupied by
columns mounted with potted plants and shops along
the walls. At one end of this space was an unusual
fountain. Marble platforms poured out into the atrium
like the expanding steps of a grand staircase. The
whole had a sheen because it was entirely coated by a
thin flow of cascading water. At the last moment the
water disappeared down a crack leaving a last rim of
marble dry and available for sitters.
Well, Ms Keogh had to go off to take her test. While
she was thus occupied, I went off to visit the
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology. It is a curious thing, but when I sat
down to write this month's essay, I intended to write
about my afternoon in the museum. Although I reached
the museum without difficulty, I didn't find my way
there in this brief piece of prose. The experience
that most impressed me of that day was not to be
found wandering the galleries of a museum chock-full
of the artifacts from extinct cultures. Instead, I
find myself trying to share the immense satisfaction
I derived from making the discovery of a local hidden
treasure from the current culture in which I live. Ms
Keogh uncovered the legendary Tiffany mosaic,
following which she served as my guide to reveal the
grand cavaedium of The Curtis Center, all without
paying an entrance fee. This was a fine
archaeological exploration. |