Wunderkammer

The Grolier Club‘s fine exhibition closes in a week. As a wunderkammermensch whose apartment, if not this very blog, is very cabinet-of-curiosity oriented, I must urge you to go see it while you can. Rarely is an exhibition of books, many of them catalogues of private collections, so intriguing. (For a bibliophile, no inducement is necessary.) There was a time when, if you didn’t have a stuffed crocodile suspended from the ceiling of your room full of wonders, you were nobody. Of course, it’s a damn good thing for the crocs that this is no longer the case….

Keep an eye out for this elk snail seal hybrid, a product of observation and miscommunication, or shall we say the imagination? It’s one of my favorite images on display in the pages of these tomes: