Word: curiosities
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It was money, of course, that began the extermination of the Indians some 400 years ago. Portuguese adventurers, as thick as piranhas, swarmed up the Amazon, slaughtering all the Indians that seemed unfit for slavery. When the Indians, who had no concept of regular work, proved uneconomical, black Africans were...
Coral and Malaria. Of course, Europe had long been crisscrossed by wandering medieval craftsmen like Wiligelmo and Gislebertus. But Dürer seems to have been the first great artist to act on the idea that response to different cultures is part of the creative process itself. His appetite for curios...
Actually, the interest began with Mother, whom the Rockefeller sons have always talked of in capital letters. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was a woman of powerful prejudices, and most of them were good. She collected Indian art before many people thought it worth collecting, ventured into Greenwich Village to see the...
With regard to the black people, or vis a vis the history of manufacturing in America, or the collection of American antiques, or an interest in American art, one might feel a dillettante, or boorish. Listen to any knowledgeable person--especially a European--and he will tell you to study...
When Louis XVI succeeded Louis XV in 1774, the rococo was superseded by the neoclassical mode, an improbable amalgam of Roman severity and Bourbon frivolity exemplified by the small writing desk that stands between two tapestry-covered Louis XV armchairs. The desk's spare lines are in conflict with...