Jules Prown has written "influential metaphorical readings of objects," in which "there is a single moment of interpretation which unlocks the meaning of a given artifact."
see “Style as Evidence” ("one of material culture’s founding essays")
Glenn Adamson, not quite recommending (he prefers a criticism that "put[s] the object in charge"—that "grant[s] its power at the outset, and assume[s] that it can never be fully accounted for."