The strange career of Christopher Dresser can be summed up in a frieze and a teapot, both on view at the Cooper-Hewitt. The frieze shows an outlandish convocation of stick insects, wobbling forward in mock procession. Here the insect kingdom is, literally, a kingdom: the bugs’ antennae are drawn up to form crowns and their iridescent green wings unfurl like royal robes of state, while tridents gripped in bony limbs serve as scepters. Here is that curious Victorian impulse to wed the comical and the nightmarish; Dresser dubbed the frieze “Old Bogey.” An altogether different sensibility pervades the teapot. No more than a silver square, it sits diagonally, two of its sides extending to form spout and handle. A smaller square is cut out of the middle, placing a void at the pot’s center of gravity that declares the axis around which it rotates and pours. Unlike the botanic-insectile phantasmagoria of Old Bogey, this is as laconic as ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase