What is assembled here might look like a modern 'Cabinet of
Curiosities', an assemblage of the exotic and curious from the four
quarters of the world. There is an intention behind it, however,
that goes beyond presenting a wide variety of curiosities. We are
today linked up to all those four quarters, and while a huge amount
of information is available to us, unlike to those who awaited the
ships in the ports of Amsterdam, Genoa, Lisbon, London, Marseille,
Seville or Venice, the horizon of what interests us seems to have
shrunk. The art market is an interesting barometer of this
shrinkage. The point is, therefore, that we can connect with the
whole world on a much more profound level than can be gained from
package touring, through the possession of, and study of even the
most modest objects of different cultures. The purpose of
collecting, as Moliere might have put it, should not be limited to
becoming rich through the investment in one's purchases, but to
become enriched through the possession of what one has acquired.
Highlights include: the silver libation cup of Mo ngke Khan,
grandson of Genghis and ruler of an empire that stretched from
modern Bucharest to Peking, and Karachi to Novgorod; the apple from
the Garden of Eden - a silver pomander belonging to the Stuart
Kings, with bite marks, opening to reveal a silver skull; a
Scythian (6-7th centuries BC) jade pendant of the endangered Saiga
antelope, as nely carved as anything by Faberge; a bronze Bacchus
head from a tripod table belonging to the Emperor Augustus; a
limestone bear carved in 3rd millenium BC Bactria.
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