DESIGN SUMMARY

A Portable Camera Obscura

A Portable Camera Obscura

“An Instrument of Use to take the Draught, or Picture of any Thing,” in Robert Hooke, Philosophical Experiments and Observations (London, 1726). Courtesy University of Michigan Special Collections.

/hookes-camera-obscura

Reynolds's Camera Obscura

Reynolds's Camera Obscura

Painter Joshua Reynolds owned a camera obscura that folded up into the shape of a book.  Image courtesy Science Museum, London (AN 1875-28).

/reynoldss-camera-obscura

Willis's Brain

Willis's Brain

Physician Thomas Willis pioneered the techniques to lay open the delicate, ringlike vascular structure in the core of the brain.  Photo by Curator, from Cerebri Anatome (1664). 

/thomas-williss-brain

The Judgment of Paris

The Judgment of Paris

Marcantonio’s engraving of the Judgment of Paris, from the design of Raphael (1511–1513). H,2.24 © Trustees of the British Museum.

/raphaels-judgment

Venus at Her Toilette

Venus at Her Toilette

Jan van Kessel the Elder, Kunstkammer with Venus at Her Toilette-- one of many similar paintings produced, factory-style, in the studios of Dutch and Flemish artists. AN 2797 © Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.

/venus-toilette

Woodward's Cabinet

Woodward's Cabinet

One of five fall-front cabinets, containing the oldest-known complete mineralogical collection.  Image courtesy Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Cambridge.

/woodwardscabinet

The Cave of Pope

The Cave of Pope

Pope's converted a foot-tunnel on his property into a mineralogical collection.  Photo by Curator, used with kind permission of Radnor House School.

/popes-grotto

Sir Kenelm's Idea

Sir Kenelm's Idea

Sir Kenelm Digby compared the agitated mind to a bowl full of currants.  I was curious what that would look like.  Photo by Curator.

/digbys-idea