Rare and Curious

Résumé du livre

The Macquarie's collectors' chest, also known as the Strathallan cabinet, displays layers of preserved butterflies, insects and birds, as well as painted panels by some of Australia's best early colonial painters. Rare & Curious uncovers the secret histories of the Macquarie and Dixson Galleries' collectors' chests. The Macquarie collectors' chest, an enigmatic wooden cabinet filled with painted panels and exotic treasures, was created in Australia for Governor Lachlan Macquarie in around 1818. It was taken to the United Kingdom, and languished forgotten and unnoticed at Strathallan castle in Scotland until it was rediscovered in the late 1970s. The Mitchell Library of New South Wales acquired the chest, and its remarkable similarity to the Dixson Galleries' collectors' chest, acquired by the Library in 1937, raised intriguing questions about the cabinets' creators, owners and purpose. Rare and curious also reveals much about the fledgling colony, the vision of Governor Macquarie and the natural history of colonial Australia.