Cabinet de curiosités

The cast – known as the ‘Boys cast’ - was made for the Rev Richard Boys, Senior Chaplain of St Helena and is one of only a tiny handful with a provenance linking it directly to the island. Photo: Bonhams. LONDON (AFP).- A cast of Napoleon Bonaparte's death mask recently sold at auction in Britain could leave the country unless a domestic buyer can match the £175,100 ($280,640, 208,400 euros) sale price, the government warned Wednesday.  Culture Minister Ed Vaizey announced that he had deferred granting an export licence for... [Lire la suite]

The fairies of Cedric Laquieze.  Composed of bones, plants, feathers, and insect parts, these fairies are the inspired creations of Cedric Laquieze, an Amsterdam based sculptor and recent graduate from the Rietveld academy (class of 2010). (source  Cedric’s blog)

South American Birds Display in Framed Shadow Box. Including: American Redstart, Scarlet Tanager, Yellow Warbler, Various other Warblers and Tropical Birds. Circa Mid to Late-19th Century.

Cabinet of Cats, Birds, & Other Assorted Specimens. Ryan Matthew’s Collection. Photo by Sergio Royzen.

Cabinet by Alexandre Isidore Leroy de Barde, 1810.

Kunstkammer cabinet set up by Georg Laue with treasures from the Renaissance and Baroque.  LONDON - Art of the Curious, an intriguing collaborative exhibition of curiosities of nature and art, will be staged at Colnaghi, 15 Old Bond Street, London, from 2 to 25 October 2013. Colnaghi’s paintings and drawings departments will join forces with Kunstkammer Georg Laue of Munich, the leading gallery specialising in Kunst- and Wunderkammer objects of the Renaissance and Baroque, to show a selection of... [Lire la suite]

Pyritized Ammonite, Russia Opalized and pyritized ammonite fossil The Rare Gemstone Ammolite.  This dazzling iridescent fossil of an 80 million year old ammonite measuring two feet in diameter was discovered near Alberta, Canada and is a particularly rare example of an ancient sea creature that went extinct at the same time as most dinosaurs. The spectacular coloration is the result of millions of years of high temperatures and pressures acting on the animal’s shell to create a gemstone known as ammolite. Ammonite,... [Lire la suite]

Frederik Ruysch. National Library of Medicine Frederic Ruysch (1638-1731) was a Dutch botanist and anatomist, remembered mainly for his groundbreaking methods of anatomical preservation and the creation of his carefully arranged scenes incorporating human body parts. These remarkable ‘still life’ displays blurred the boundary between the demonstrative element of scientific preservation and the symbolic and allegorical of vanitas art. As well as his larger more elaborate anatomical displays (as seen above) he would also keep... [Lire la suite]

KNORR BOAR. This boar’s skull is one of several prints we’ve added to our offerings of hand-colored natural history engravings from an extensive series documenting collector’s cabinets produced by German naturalist Georg W. Knorr in the 1760s called "Deliciae Naturae Selectae Oder Auserlefenes Natüralien-Cabinet" [Selected Delights of Nature, or the Exquisite Collector’s Cabinet].

Shell Knorr. Photo courtesy George Timmons Shell Knorr. Photo courtesy George Timmons Shell Knorr. Photo courtesy George Timmons Shell Knorr. Photo courtesy George Timmons   Shell Knorr. Photo courtesy George Timmons Antique prints from "Les Delices des Yeux et de L’Esprit, a la Representation d’une Collection Universelle des Coquilles” by Georg Wolfgang Knorr published in 1764 in Nuremberg, Germany. This series of antique prints is beautifully hand colored (original hand color work on antique print) and is of... [Lire la suite]