A Cabinet of Rarities | Antiquarian Obsessions and the Spell of Death
Mauriès, Patrick [Illustrated by Érik Desmazières, born in 1948 in Rabat in Morocco, is a French Aquafortist Engraver Based in Paris.] Sir Thomas Browne [Patrick Mauries Text Translated From the French by Ruth Sharman]
(Book #ID 99768)
Published by Thames and Hudson Ltd., 181A High Holborn, London First UK Edition 2012. 2012.
First edition hard back binding in publisher's original illustrated paper covered boards, black title and author lettering to the spine and the front cover. 4to. 11½'' x 8¼''. 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 favourite 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 spectres of death, subject matter once considered the preserve of specialists, have entered the cultural mainstream and have found a broad popular audience. 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, including the first ever book to include the rare colour works of this master printmaker - Érik Desmazières. Contains 110 printed pages of text with 38 monochrome and colour illustrations throughout. Fine condition book in Fine condition dust wrapper with peek-a-boo cut-out to the front cover, unused new book. Dust wrapper supplied in archive acetate film protection. Member of the P.B.F.A. ISBN 9780500516348
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