The famous showcase cabinet crafted by Emil J. Krall of the A.H. Heisey and Co. has returned home to be on permanent display at Newark's National Heisey Glass Museum.

The official dedication and opening of the new display at the museum was June 14.

"It was very successful; it was standing room only," said Jay Barker, president of the Heisey Collectors of America.

Krall designed and engraved the mirror frame to hold the likeness of 1936 Republican presidential candidate Alfred M. Landon, who was supported by E. Wilson Heisey, president of the glass company. The cabinet later was used to promote sales of engraved Heisey glassware.

Barker said that acquiring the cabinet itself was not difficult. After the Heisey glass company closed, the cabinet was sold with the contents of the factory in 1957. It was featured in a local antique shop in Kirkersville until it was sold in the late 1960s and relocated to a Texas collector's home.

In the early 1970s, the cabinet was returned to Newark and offered for sale; however, a satisfactory sales arrangement was not made and the cabinet was returned to the Texas collector's home, where it remained until the collector offered it to the National Heisey Glass Museum in the summer of 2011. The museum plans to keep it permanently.

Funding support for the cabinet acquisition and display was received from the John and Mary Alford Foundation, the Energy Cooperative Round Up Foundation and the Rotary Club of Newark in Heath.

Barker said the challenges were transporting the piece from Texas and then painstakingly restoring it while remaining true to its original design and construction.

"This is the largest work of art created by Heisey," Barker said.

He said Krall used a copper wheel and a piece of glass in the same way a painter uses a brush on canvas to produce spectacular creative works.

"It's amazing what this person was able to make," Barker said.