curiosity cabinets
collections of strange, weird and wonderful objects
I must have been a disgusting child. I brought home all manner of fungi, rotting skulls and bird nests, interesting pebbles, fossils, dessicated frogs...
Some things never change! I lugged my strange collections around for decades before realising they'd look brilliant displayed in curiosity cabinets.
Rubbish? Probably. Toxic? Possibly (I'm joking...) But beautiful all the same.
My first curiosity cabinet containing, top left to bottom right:
an interesting piece of iron or bronze found along the South Downs Way, a fossil crinoid stem, part of a Victorian pipe stem from the garden, a sterling silver box one inch long, a bumble bee, a fossil shark's tooth, a hand-cast sterling silver bird, a gram of gold and a shield bug, an opal, a dessicated fish, an EPNS Art Nouveau dress clip, a fossil gastropod, another interesting piece of iron or bronze found along the South Downs Way, a piece of opaline glass and a 1920s Christmas cake decoration, a water snail shell and some smoky quartz.