The Most Beautiful Bird Cage in the World!

The internet can be a dangerous black hole of eye candy, and when it relates to antique pet items, the frustration of “I will never find one in my lifetime” sets in. In this case, we discovered the most beautiful all-glass birdcage, made in Italy sometime before 1916. This cage was discovered on the Cooper Hewitt Museum website, which has a nice collection of rare bird cages. It seemed the Hewitt sisters (Sarah, Eleanor and Amy) traveled to Europe, where they discovered antique birdcages and put together a nice small collection that was eventually donated to the Museum carrying their name and legacy. Taking a wild guess that the Cooper Hewitt Museum was not going to donate this treasure anytime soon to the Museum of Aquarium & Pet History, we decided to do the next best thing. We made one. This project took two years and three creative artists, one in wood, one in metal, and one in glass, to complete this project. When we started, I had questions about how the bird feeder doors and main door operated, plus I wanted to see more close-up images. Unfortunately, COVID hit about one week after I made this request, and all museums pretty much shut down. The glass cage is strikingly beautiful, and I would love to track down the glass company in Italy that made it. (Murino?) The only thing that bothered me about this cage was the original had no perches for the canary to sit on! So away we went and designed a “glass bird tree,” as there was no way to fasten glass tubing to the sides of the cage unless it was permanent. I am very pleased with the final product and wish to thank Rick, Larry, and Ron for all their time and many years experience to complete this project.