Blair Museum of Lithophanes

Lithophanes are three-dimensional translucent porcelain plaques which when backlit reveal detailed magical images. First created in Europe in the 1820s, the largest collection of this 19th century art form in the world is now on view at the Blair Museum of Lithophanes. The Blair Museum of Lithophanes was founded by Laurel Gotshall Blair (1909-1993), a native Toledoan whose father had opened the Blair Realty and Investment Company in 1908. Blair Realty was a major developer in Toledo in the 1920s, creating such communities as the upscale Heatherdowns with its own country club. Mr. Blair attended Scott High School and the University of Michigan, and like his father before him, served as President of the Toledo Board of Realtors.   A born collector, Laurel Blair, first discovered lithophanes in October 1961. He was attending a meeting of some collectors from the International Music Box Society in Berlin Heights, Ohio. There he saw something he’d never seen before -- two delicate porcelain pictures magically illuminated by the sunlight -- hanging in the window. He learned they were “lithophanes” and, as he later wrote, he “fell in love.”