{"product_id":"a-cabinet-of-rarities-antiquarian-obsessions-and-the-spell-of-death","title":"A Cabinet of Rarities: Antiquarian Obsessions and the Spell of Death","description":"Erik Desmazi�res is acknowledged as a contemporary master of the art of etching. With breathtaking virtuosity, he recreates interiors, cityscapes, landscapes and fantastical compositions from a Piranesian world. Any new work Desmazi�res produces is a bibliophile’s delight; and this book, the first in which he uses colour, reimagines the arcane world of the cabinet of curiosities: antiquarian collections of the recondite, rare and bizarre, which reminded the viewer of the vanity of earthly life. Patrick Mauri�s’s text is in three parts. The first locates Desmazi�res and his work in the long tradition of artist-printmakers; the second surveys the world of 17th-century antiquarianism and its intriguing cast of characters (John Evelyn, John Aubrey and, above all, Thomas Browne, plus many of their continental counterparts); and in the third Mauri�s examines today’s reawakened interest in cabinets of rarities and curiosities, and considers how a phenomenon once considered the preserve of specialists has entered the cultural mainstream.","brand":"Thames \u0026 Hudson","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53250168652163,"sku":"9780500516348N","price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/files\/c082a300-451a-4067-b2ee-72008e3ebb26.jpg?v=1727771918","url":"https:\/\/smeikalbooks.co.uk\/en-us\/products\/a-cabinet-of-rarities-antiquarian-obsessions-and-the-spell-of-death","provider":"smeikalbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}