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MASSIMO LISTRI CABINET OF CURIOSITIES

Book number: 88323 Product format: Hardback Author: GIULIA CARCIOTTO & A. PAOLUCCI

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Bibliophile price £87.00
Published price £


Exquisitely bound in a satin cloth decorated with an Archimboldo design of the head with the face made of flowers and plants and this outsize volume has a pink satin pagemarker and double gate centre pages, stunning black glossy background highlighting its treasures and many of these collectables are made of Nautilus shells with gilt-bronze settings decorated with dolphins, a lion's mouth, and some encrusted with rubies and turquoises. There are ornamental goblets, cups, exquisite glassware, shells of all shapes and colours, many in glass fronted cabinets, and the more gruesome skeletons, lizards and snakes and frogs, and more tasteful collections cameos, marble, silverware, and in today's eyes less tasteful rare birds, carved and inlaid ivory, armadillos, alligators, carved ebony servants. Seven countries Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Italy and England have been chosen with museums natural history, chateau, private collections, the Schloss Friedenstein in Gotha, Uppsala University in Sweden and curiosities of fantastic drawings, portraiture, semiprecious stones, collections of macabre paintings of humans with animal faces dressed in Tudor costumes, a man with a bloodied eye and the other eye socket pierced with a spear, there are decorative ships and dragons and all manner of shapes and colours and ideas for interior design, reflecting the history of collecting with beautiful objects, weapons and natural curiosities. The unique new Taschen publication, dripping with colour. The Wunderkammer, or "cabinet of curiosities," saw collectors gathering objects from many strands of artistic, scientific and intellectual endeavour, in an ambitious attempt to encompass all of humankind's knowledge in a single room. From the Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici and Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II to Archduke Ferdinand II of Habsburg, these aristocratic virtuosos acquired, selected and displayed the objects in real-life catalogues that represented the entire world - spanning architecture, interior design, painting, sculpture, gemology, geology, botany, biology and taxonomy, astrology, alchemy, anthropology, ethnography and history. Marvel at the unicorn horns (narwhal tusks), gems, rare coral growths, Murano glasswork, paintings and peculiar mechanical automata. Browse through illustrations of exotic and mythical creatures and discover the famed "Coburg ivories," an astounding collection of crafted artifacts. These collections are nothing short of a journey through time, from the Renaissance and Age of Discovery, the Mannerist and Baroque periods, up to the present day. Massimo Listri travelled to seven European countries over several decades and the result is a set of gorgeous photographs on each of 19 astonishing chambers, highlighting the most remarkable items in each collection. Text in English, French and German. Colour. 29 x 39½cm, 5.04 kg, 356 pages.

Additional product information

ISBN 9783836540353
Browse these categories as well: Art & Architecture, Collectables/Antiques, TASCHEN BACK IN STOCK, Taschen new publications: Art and Photography