Curiosities from the Cabinet: Objects and Voices from Britain's Museums

by Rebecca Reynolds, Minho Kwon (Illustrator)

Overview

Curiosities from the Cabinet features 36 museum objects including an ancient Babylonian tablet, a 21st-century webpage, a skeleton marionette and a colony of live ants, found in UK museums from Weston-super-Mare to the Shetland Islands. Over 40 people from inside and outside the museum world – curators, conservators, visitors, users, artists – talk about these objects with knowledge, passion and even tenderness.

We listen as British Museum Assyriologist Irving Finkel explains the oldest known map of the world; David Kohn of the American Museum of Natural History describes how Darwin's weed garden contributed to On the Origin of Species; and novelist and ‘Janeite’ Cindy Jones spins her own story around Jane Austen’s writing table. This book will inform and intrigue anyone who likes visiting museums.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780995516724
Publisher:	Finca Press
Publication date:	12/01/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	214
File size:	742 KB

About the Author

Rebecca Reynolds has worked in museum education since 2006; firstly at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and then as a visiting lecturer in Museum Studies and museum education consultant at The Museum of English Rural Life, Reading University. The core of her work is making museums and collections accessible to visitors, and developing creative and innovative ways of exploring them.
Minho Kwon trained as an illustrator at the Royal College of Art in London and worked as an artist and lecturer at the Paju Typography Institute in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea before becoming a freelance artist.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Opening the cabinet Inside the cabinet The touchable Quilt St Fagans Museum Bastet figurine Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology Anointing spoon replica Royal Historic Palaces online gift shop The recreated Casts of Parthenon Sculptures Elgin Museum Colossus rebuild The National Museum of Computing Lucifer Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery The ephemeral Mermaid flyer Centre for Ephemera Studies Toilet paper Land of Lost Content Twitter feed The British Library The lethal Mercury Ulster Museum Flint-lock pistols Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Euthanasia machine Science Museum The dead Barn owl Booth Museum of Natural History Crocodile handbag Cole Museum of Zoology Jeremy Bentham auto-icon University College London The living Leafcutter ants Liverpool World Museum Darwin's weed garden Down House Captain Woodget The Cutty Sark The extinct Quagga skeleton Grant Museum of Zoology Babylonian map of the world British Museum Bend used for peat flittin' Fetlar Interpretive Centre The mobile Skeleton marionette Victoria and Albert Museum Wave machine Whipple Museum of the History of Science Brantly B2B helicopter Helicopter Museum The verbal Paradise Lost Milton's Cottage Wesley monument Museum of London Probate copy of the will of Thomas Leyland International Slavery Museum The domestic Britains toy farm set Museum of English Rural Life Homemaker plate Brighton Museum and Art Gallery Jane Austen's writing table Jane Austen's House Museum The huge Coal mine Big Pit National Coal Museum Emigrant sailing ship Ulster American Folk Park Monasterboice cross Victoria and Albert Museum The curious Hans Sloane's specimen tray British Museum Powhatan's mantle Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary Garden Museum Closing the cabinet References and further resources List of museums

Editorial Reviews

'Curiosities from the Cabinet offers a glimpse of the past of museums, then a fresh exploration of their collections. Far from being a defunct form, left behind by time, the idea of the cabinet of curiosity continues to entice and surprise. This book does too.'
David Anderson, Director, National Museum Wales

'This is both an accessible and illuminating introduction to some wonderful objects.'
Kate Arnold-Forster, Director, Museum of English Rural Life, Reading

From the Publisher