Miriam Ehlert Mucha, expert on glass, dies at 87

MIRIAM EHLERT Mucha, an expert on glass who spent 30 years at the Philadelphia Museum of Art working mostly with priceless glass collections, died Feb. 16. She was 87 and was living in Portland, Ore.

One of her greatest accomplishments at the Philadelphia museum was coordinating and overseeing the reinstallation of the George H. Lorimer Collection of American and European Glass.

She also was a specialist in French lacy pressed glass.

Miriam was a woman of many gifts. She was an excellent athlete. She enjoyed swimming, skiing and dancing, especially ballet. In later years, she took up golf, and also enjoyed birding.

"Miriam personified both the graceful athleticism and delicate strength of the falcon and hummingbird," according to her obituary.

As the wife of the late Robert H. Mucha, a career Air Force officer, she traveled the world. After his retirement, they settled in Langhorne, Bucks County.

Her long and varied career in the museum world began at Bellingrath Gardens, in Theodore, Ala., where she served as a guide from 1962 to 1965.

She took a fine arts degree from the Department of Fine Arts & History at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., in 1967, and began two years' service as a docent at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco.

She then joined the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a docent. For much of her career here, she was a special assistant director in the American Art Department.

She demonstrated in lectures and writing that she knew her stuff. As author of the museum's Handbook of the Collections, she once wrote about the work of one of the most famous names in glass. Here's an excerpt:

"Inspired by the iridescence and irregular surfaces that resulted from the mineral decomposition of ancient Greek and Roman glass, Louis Comfort Tiffany began experimenting to achieve similar effects on blown glass produced by his firm."

Through the course of her life in the world of glass study and collecting, Miriam, a tireless researcher, published and delivered numerous articles and lectures.

In 1987, the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, N.Y., awarded her the Rakow Grant for Glass Research.

Miriam served as trustee of the Creative Glass Center of America of the WheatonArts and Cultural Center in Millville, N.J.

She served on the board and sometimes as the director of the Sandwich Glass Museum, Sandwich, Mass. She was past president of the National American Glass Club.

She had no immediate survivors.

Services: An inurnment will be held at Arlington National Cemetery at a future date. *