Happy Birthday, Baby: Antique Birthday Gifts

Andy Warhol screenprint, “Heart”, inscribed “Happy Birthday / Tommy P / love Andy Warhol / May 1979″

As Heraclitus said, you never step in the same river twice. I wonder if he had a child, because while you never step in the same river twice, in many areas of life you can sort of, sometimes, “wade” into the same river twice, and at least attempt to recreate situations that have passed – reconnect with high school friends, try for a more peaceful start to the day tomorrow, make a different choice from the restaurant menu next time, etc. But that’s the bittersweetness of children – once it’s gone, it’s gone, and every day they become another version of themselves and yesterday’s version vanishes forever. To my unending delight, there are, of course, all those versions to come, but to my unending sadness, the Nora I had at three days and at three months are gone. In just a few weeks, I will have 365 versions of her behind me – she’ll be a whole year old! And so, in honor of Baby Girl’s first birthday, I thought I’d take a look through the database at all the things that have been birthday gifts at some point.

I was surprised by how many birthday-related items we have in the database! Some of them were originally made as birthday gifts, while others have had the role of birthday gift added to their legacy after becoming antiques. For instance, this little traveling desk with all its cubbyholes and a tiny engraving of George Washington in the center was a gift to researcher Nina Fletcher Little from her husband, Bertram, one-time director the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England). This paint-decorated box, on the other hand, started life as a birthday present. The inscription on the back indicates that it was a gift to a little girl on her sixth birthday. And then there are legions of artworks that have been gifted, often by the artist. Andy Warhol, for example, gave a number of screenprints as gifts, including the heart pictured above. Other gifts, well, they make you wonder. While Warhol’s gifts convey a sense of warmth and affection, I’m still trying to determine what the giver of this was trying to say….

-Hollie Davis, Senior Editor, p4A.com

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