The catalog for an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, May to August 1998, displaying items of encyclopedic Dutch and Flemish collections from the 17th and 18th centuries. The collections were housed in the newly constructed Dutch Cabinet Galleries, small chambers suitable for the small paintings and objects typical of such collections. About half the reproductions are in color. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Explore the wonderful world of antiques and collectables with Antiques Roadshow regular, Marc Allum. Go in search of stolen masterpieces, learn the secrets of the forgers, track down Napoleon's toothbrush and meet the garden gnome insured for £1 million. Eclectic, eccentric and brimming with remarkable tales from history, The Collector's Cabinet is for all those who are fascinated by the relics of the past.
For the first time, the pioneering book that launched the study of art and curiosity cabinets is available in English. Julius von Schlosser’s Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance (Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance) is a seminal work in the history of art and collecting. Originally published in German in 1908, it was the first study to interpret sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cabinets of wonder as precursors to the modern museum, situating them within a history of collecting going back to Greco-Roman antiquity. In its comparative approach and broad geographical scope, Schlosser’s book introduced an interdisciplinary and global perspective to the study of art and material culture, laying the foundation for museum studies and the history of collections. Schlosser was an Austrian professor, curator, museum director, and leading figure of the Vienna School of art history whose work has not achieved the prominence of his contemporaries until now. This eloquent and informed translation is preceded by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann’s substantial introduction. Tracing Schlosser’s biography and intellectual formation in Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century, it contextualizes his work among that of his contemporaries, offering a wealth of insights along the way.
For bibliophiles, print collectors, and connoisseurs, and anyone whose imagination is fired by the macabre and the arcane: contemporary etchings recreating interiors, studios, cityscapes, landscapes, and fantastical compositions from a Piranesian world The manifestation of a collector’s appetite for discovering and mastering the world—represented by singular items of natural history, geology, art, or relics—cabinets of curiosities and rarities became popular in the Renaissance and were precursors to the modern museum. Largely inspired by seventeenth-century scientist and antiquary Sir Thomas Browne, whose esoteric writings have long appealed to scholars, this rare new work is a bibliophile’s delight. Erik Desmazières’s contemporary etchings present a cabinet of rarities portraying a collection of the recondite, rare, and bizarre, complete with emblems of the vanity of earthly life and intimations of mortality. Death and decay are favorite subjects: a skull recalls depictions of Sir Thomas Browne’s own, disinterred and displayed in a local museum until the 1920s. These abstruse objects and specters of death, subject matter once considered the preserve of specialists, have entered the cultural mainstream and have found a broad popular audience.
Let the inimitable aesthete Viktor Wynd guide you through a subversive celebration of curiosities, art, mess, decay, and self indulgence, passionately arguing that the world is full of wonder that is in danger of being sanitized and that collectors are the ultimate artists. The book visits rarified locations lovingly curated by bohemians and artists: from a rambling Devon farmhouse and its historic taxidermy to an Italianate villa in East London to the House of Dreams Museum. It also includes advice on how to start a collection of your own, covering details on auction houses, private dealers, flea markets and fairs, and shows that having distinctive taste does not necessarily require a massive budget.
*New kitchen cabinets add value to any home *Expert advice that will make the project easier for anyone *From planning and supplies to installation *Filled with photographs and step-by-step instructions
