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Books  >   Collecting Antiques : 

Cabinets of Curiosities

by:
Mauries, Patrick





Publisher:
Thames and Hudson
Published:November 2002
ISBN:0500510911
Format:Hardcover
Pages:256

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Description: From Library Journal
In this sumptuously illustrated volume, Mauries (Jean Cocteau) presents the long history of cabinets of curiosities-grand accumulations of rare, exotic, or unusual objects either natural or human-made, displayed in decorative cases or entire rooms. The earliest documented case, from late 15th-century Italy, was a collection of books as well as a variety of botanical and zoological specimens (including a stuffed crocodile). Collections have also included textiles, scientific and musical instruments, ethnographic objects, automata, paintings, silverware, and mummified anatomical specimens. That the fascination with collecting-as well as with organizing these collections in some artistic fashion-has continued through the centuries is evident in the "shadow boxes" by 20th-century artists such as Joseph Cornell. In many ways, this book is a cabinet of curiosities in itself-crammed with fascinating images and information. While the images are the book's strength (the author is affiliated with the beautifully illustrated Italian journal FMR), some are used as background to the text, thereby either obscuring or being obscured by the printed page. Even worse, some lack captions or have captions that are erroneous. In addition, the book suffers from not having an adequate index or a glossary to help with the many foreign and esoteric terms used. Although the book is fun to browse through, it shouldn't be considered a necessary purchase.
Margaret Gross, Chicago P.L.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Newsday.com, 1 December 2002
A suitably lavish history of collections.

Book Description
The cabinet of curiosities, that strange assemblage of marvels from the natural world with virtuoso man-made objects, seemed definitively consigned to realms where only scholars venture. Its 300-year history apparently came to an end with the eccentric collectors of the baroque age, when scientific thinking and rationalism took over. But in recent years the cabinet of curiosities has reappeared in exhibitions in Europe and America and in international colloquia on university campuses, while reemerging as a source of inspiration for interior decorators and contemporary artists.

This spectacular and ingenious book traces the history of these "rooms of wonders," from their first appearance in the inventories and engravings commissioned by Renaissance nobles such as the Medici and the Hapsburgs, via those of the Dane Ole Wurm and the Italian polymath Athanasius Kircher, to the cabinets of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scientists Elias Ashmole and Levinas Vincent.

Much was genuinely scientific: minerals, fossils, stuffed and preserved animals and plants. Some items were merely curious, or even grotesque-freaks of nature, monstrous births, insects in amber. The artificial or man-made was equally prominent-wax effigies, death masks, specimens of almost incredible ingenuity (such as carvings on cherry-stones), or mechanical automata that imitated living things. The fascination of curiosities lies in their combination: they represent a stage of human inquiry in which imagination had not been divorced from reason.

Patrick Mauriès reconstructs these rooms of wonders as they were in their heyday and illustrates many of the most exotic items they contained, as well as the few complete interiors that survive. He begins with the totality of the collection, the "theater of the world," the whole sum of human knowledge gathered together in one room. He then examines the cabinets that contained and categorized the objects. Next he opens them to reveal the extraordinary mélange of curiosities, specimens, and works of art. He looks at the personalities of the collectors themselves, from great princes to humble scholars, and finally at the modern revival of the cabinet of curiosity. 250 illustrations, 150 in color; 256 pages, including 3 gatefolds.

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