Get inside a cabinet of curiosities at The Getty or in London

25 May 2010 - by ArtfixDaily Staff

The Hausburg Cabinet. Butchoff Antiques.

The newly-designed European sculpture and decorative arts galleries at The Getty Center in Los Angeles are arranged according to period and theme, incorporating paintings and two-dimensional works of art.

One extraordinary piece can be viewed close-up in 3-D: A collector's cabinet from Augsburg, Germany.

Beginning in the 17th century, European collectors used such lavish cabinets to gather items of natural, artistic, and intellectual interest, in the manner of a mini-museum.

The Getty's interactive display, available online and in the gallery with the piece itself, offers an in-depth look at the richly-decorated interiors within this curious cabinet.

Sumptuous and surprising elements, such as the illusion of a tiny room---evoked by Italian marble and lapis lazuli architectural details---in the cabinet's center, are revealed.

The Getty Center opened its new galleries for Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture and Decorative Arts on May 18.

Also, Butchoff Antiques is presenting a special exhibition of cabinets now through June 26, 2010, at 154 Kensington Church Street, London.

Widely recognized makers from Jean Macé to John Maples will be shown as well as little known cabinetmaker Friedrich Ludwig Hausburg (1817-1886) whose rediscovered masterpiece, The Hausburg Cabinet 1840-57, a significant piece of 19th-century cabinetmaking, will be offered in the exhibition (image shown above).

The minutely-detailed Hausburg Cabinet depicts scenes of the Cathedral of Rheims, Westminster Abbey, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, Kew Palace, the Old House of Lords, Brighton Pavilion, the castles of Windsor, Dover, and Caernarvon and Kenilworth, St Pauls Cathedral, St.James Palace, and The Tower of London, among other landmarks.

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