The Object

How to Stop an Assassin

Long ago, when everyone but your dog was a potential assassin, you needed to protect yourself by any means necessary. Starting with poison-proof silverware. A surprising story of art, myth, and the dangerous world that was.

Lord of the Dance: An Indian Icon Goes Global

In the 1920s, the sculptural image of Shiva Nataraja--the Hindu god Shiva as the cosmic dancer, ensuring the cycle of life--suddenly becomes a museum must-have. As India strives for independence, the image comes to symbolize something of the nascent nation itself.

X-ray Man and the Great Mummy Mystery

An assistant curator decides to x-ray a 3,000-year-old mummy case, to learn if anything’s in there, and sees more than he bargained for. The international mystery would change his life — and the fate of the mummy.

Liminal Life: The Two Worlds of George Morrison

When the frontier closed, the fate of Native Americans seemed sealed. But George Morrison, born into poverty near a reservation on Lake Superior, was as determined to be an artist as he was to avoid stereotypes.

Talk to Me: The Woman Who Knew Everything

Miriam McHugh Taney was a professional encyclopedia, lecturing on everything from the Italian Renaissance to early American furniture — a rare authority for a woman in the 1930s. But the real purpose of her museum talks went beyond knowledge.

Fellowship of the Things

There were wolves and caribou on the Minnesota frontier when John Scott Bradstreet arrived with his white suits and Far East fantasies of furniture, determined to elevate this outpost with fine interior design. A globalist mission on a collision course with history.

Americana

After founding General Mills, the food and flour giant, James Ford Bell turned to preserving the America he knew and loved. A vision that was fast disappearing in the stampede of mass immigration — and may never have existed at all.

Egyptomania

She was wealthy, single, and always in the right place at the right time. But when Lily Place was in Egypt during the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, her art collecting suddenly put her at the epicenter of a curious and powerful trend that was about to shape world history one last time.