The industrial revolution created an expanded market of goods, making paper (along with many other items) more widely available due to decreased production costs. It also created a growing pocket of leisure time (for some), focusing on fashionable interests such as letter writing. The first stamps were being printed at this time, bolstering the practice of sending paper mail. Since then, paperweights have become highly collectable objects of art, with particularly spectacular examples selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Leland Little is proud to offer a curated selection of paperweights in our upcoming June Estate Auction from the
Collection of the late Dr. & Mrs. Henry C. and Barbara Landon III of Wilmington, North Carolina.
Paul Ysart was a Spanish master craftsman who began making paperweights in the 1930s and continued to do so until his retirement in 1979. Paul learned the art of using millefiori canes in his paperweights from his father Salvador, who used them in the 1920s as part of his glass-blowing centric art. Millefiori comes from the Italian word which means “a thousand flowers.” The millefiori technique can be shown along the edge of the paperweight shown on the right. The bouquet of flowers itself is a technique known as “lampwork” which Paul Ysart was extremely well known for.