To Have and to Hold

by Blom, Philipp

• ISBN13: 9781585673773
• ISBN10: 1585673773
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-02-24
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Summary

The cabinets of obsessive Renaissance collectors were filled with rhinoceros horns encrusted with rubies and jaws of gigantic fish, stuffed birds in the most extraordinary colors, and glorious seashells of all descriptions. Today's collectors amass everything from Picassos to Pez dispensers. But why? In To Have and to Hold, Philipp Blom explores the history of the collecting passion from the Renaissance to the present. Every collected object, be it a matchbook or a martyr's fingernail, carries a meaning that transcends the object itself; it is a totem. Single-minded pursuit turns the collector into cultural anthropologist. For Alex Shear, his collection from the post-war period-from vintage radios, fallout shelters, and Jell-O boxes to elaborate hair drying contraptions, bobby pins, and Barbie dolls-preserves an age of innocence in the form of the familiar household items that served as the set props for the 1950s American Dream. Alex's Renaissance counterpart is King Rudolph II, whose collection of the art and exotica of his day (housed in his ever-expanding castle in Prague) was breathtaking in its complexity and sophistication, representing the magnificent profusion of the treasures of a world newly explored. Out of this glittering diversity of material Blom distills the themes underlying this seemingly elusive passion: conquest and possession, chaos and memory, a void to be filled, and the awareness of our own mortality. What emerges is the story of the collector as bridegroom, deliriously, obsessively happy, wed to his possessions, till death do us part.

Author Biography

Philipp Blom was born in Hamburg in 1970. After studying in Vienna and Oxford, he worked in publishing as a journalist and translator in London and Paris.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Acknowledgements	xiii
Three Old Men	3	(10)
Part I: A Parliament of Monsters
The Dragon and the Tartar Lamb	13	(14)
A Melancholy Ailment	27	(23)
An Ark Abducted	50	(10)
The Exquisite Art of Dr Ruysch	60	(17)
Part II: A Complete History of Butterflies
This Curious Old Gentleman	77	(15)
The Mastodon and the Taxonomy of Memory	92	(6)
Angelus Novus	98	(11)
The Greatness of Empires	109	(15)
An Elevator to the Heavens	124	(15)
Part III: Incantations
Why Boiling People is Wrong	139	(19)
Three Flying Ducks	158	(11)
Anglers and Utopias	169	(7)
A Theatre of Memories	176	(21)
Part IV: The Tower of Fools
A Veritable Vello-Maniac	197	(15)
Leporello and His Master	212	(8)
Mr Soane is Not at Home	220	(12)
Epilogue: Plastic Cups and Mausoleums	232	(5)
Notes	237	(19)
Bibliography	256	(9)
Index	265