I grew up with this Lalique vase in the entryway to our home. It was one of several pieces that my Grandmother bought in Paris in June of 1929. I know this because my father told me. The time of the purchase seemed significant as it was only a few months before THE CRASH. Later I discovered a receipt, which seems to be about the delivery of several other Lalique items — an ashtray, a box, and a perfume bottle — to her room at Hotel Crillon.

MK:  When you were a child did you go to museums?  Pay attention to the art in your home?

LP:   When I was very young I used to pour over my parents’ two art books. One was Fifty Centuries of Art from the Metropolitan Museum, and the other was a survey of American art. What I felt when looking through those books was that I wanted to live inside a painting. We lived just outside of New York City, and my mother took me to my first museum exhibition when I was nine or so. It was a retrospective of Turner at the Modern. I remember feeling when I walked through the rooms that I wanted to know everything about what I was seeing, but I wanted to get that information directly from the paintings. I was not one to read labels.

Many years ago, when I was thinking about doing some still lifes, I bought a book published by Abrams called Still Life: A History. In it I found a painting by Giovanni Boldini, Corner of the Painter’s Table. It was an oil on canvas from 1890, and the dimensions seemed odd to me: 47 1/4 inches by 15 1/4 inches, or 120 x 38.5 cm.