The Collector's Cabinet
Our concept of "collector's cabinet" reaches back to a time and meaning preceding its Dutch Golden Age connotation of natural and scientific curiosa. Of course, a large proportion of our offerings do relate to our love of the natural world. Our inspiration, however, invokes the Renaissance studioli or private library-chamber, where princes and humanists melded the idiosyncrasies of their private collections to the history of civilization. In our homeplace Manhattan the two exemplars which never fail to inspire new awe are The Frick Collection and The Morgan Library The present missions of these collections are immeasurably enhanced by the Frick's Art Reference Library ("FRESCO" on-line) and the Morgan's Research Library ("CORSAIR" on-line), which we access continually and enjoyably.
Museum Resources
We frequently visit, on-line if not in person, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery, Washington and the Getty. Without in any way detracting from the fineness of the many other institutions we visit and love, we find a deep wealth and broad variety of scholarly and research resources available on-line from these three of our national museums.
The Universe of Books
If we wish (always) to learn something about books, we invariably turn to the New York Public Library and the Advanced Book Exchange. The Public Library, in the first world rank as an enormously far-ranging "People's University" (self-called, having "but one criterion for admission: curiosity"), actually had its origins in the John Jacob Astor and James Lennox collections, which had much the flavor of a Frick reference library or a Morgan cabinet for bibliophiles. The Advance Book Exchange lists some of our other books not shown on this site. We use it frequently for the scholarly notes often contributed by its bookseller members and as a tool for sorting out editions, issues and other bibliographic information, and of course as a broad indication of the marketplace for books.
Our concept of "collector's cabinet" reaches back to a time and meaning preceding its Dutch Golden Age connotation of natural and scientific curiosa. Of course, a large proportion of our offerings do relate to our love of the natural world. Our inspiration, however, invokes the Renaissance studioli or private library-chamber, where princes and humanists melded the idiosyncrasies of their private collections to the history of civilization. In our homeplace Manhattan the two exemplars which never fail to inspire new awe are The Frick Collection and The Morgan Library The present missions of these collections are immeasurably enhanced by the Frick's Art Reference Library ("FRESCO" on-line) and the Morgan's Research Library ("CORSAIR" on-line), which we access continually and enjoyably.
Museum Resources
We frequently visit, on-line if not in person, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery, Washington and the Getty. Without in any way detracting from the fineness of the many other institutions we visit and love, we find a deep wealth and broad variety of scholarly and research resources available on-line from these three of our national museums.
The Universe of Books
If we wish (always) to learn something about books, we invariably turn to the New York Public Library and the Advanced Book Exchange. The Public Library, in the first world rank as an enormously far-ranging "People's University" (self-called, having "but one criterion for admission: curiosity"), actually had its origins in the John Jacob Astor and James Lennox collections, which had much the flavor of a Frick reference library or a Morgan cabinet for bibliophiles. The Advance Book Exchange lists some of our other books not shown on this site. We use it frequently for the scholarly notes often contributed by its bookseller members and as a tool for sorting out editions, issues and other bibliographic information, and of course as a broad indication of the marketplace for books.