ADD A NEW ACCESSORY TO YOUR WRITING DESK

   

 

Need to keep important papers, bills and documents neatly organized on your study or office desk? Use a paperweight to prevent them from getting scattered. A paperweight may look small, but it is heavy enough to weigh down newspapers, loose sheets and even a couple of magazines.

 A paperweight is a small solid object heavy enough, when placed on top of papers, to keep them from blowing away in a breeze or from moving under the strokes of a painting brush (as with Chinese calligraphy).

 It seems that paperweights were born almost by accident: at the end of the day, the glassworkers of the furnace instead of throwing away scraps of coloured glass, decided to join them in bulk in the molten glass. The result was a rounded and heavy object, useful to keep sheets of paper still.

 In the mid-1800s, letter writing became increasingly popular and led to the creation of new desk accessories, including glass pen holders, inkwells, and paperweights.

 Decorative glass paperweights have a flat or slightly concave base, usually polished but sometimes frosted, cut in one of several variations (e.g. star-cut bases have a multi-pointed star, while a diamond-cut base has grooves cut in a criss-cross pattern), although a footed weight has a flange in the base.

 The decorative paperweights are usually in limited editions, and are collected as works of fine glass art, some of which are exhibited in museums. First produced in about 1845, particularly in France, such decorative paperweights declined in popularity before undergoing a revival in the mid-twentieth century.

 The paperweights of Pietro Bigaglia of Venice were displayed at this exhibition. Knowledge of their existence was reportedly soon brought to the attention of the Saint-Louis glass factory in France, which immediately began to manufacture its own weights.

 Google says, In case you're curious, the world record price for a paperweight was set at just over a quarter-million dollars in a 1990 Sotheby's auction, and this is a picture of it. This antique millefiori weight, produced in the mid-1800s by the French Clichy factory, is known as the Basket of Flowers.

These days paperweight is available in different mediums in different styles, and shapes and customizable too.

Do add a new accessory to your writing desk.