{"id":17122,"date":"2015-08-10T01:06:47","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T00:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=17122"},"modified":"2025-09-20T19:14:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:14:51","slug":"a-cabinet-of-curiosities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2015\/08\/10\/a-cabinet-of-curiosities\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cabinet of Curiosities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cabinet1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I still had a television I used to enjoy Lucinda Lambton’s films for the BBC, and this one\u2014a short history of the British Wunderkammer<\/em>\u2014was a particular favourite. Lambton’s films cover similar ground to those of Jonathan Meades but with a lighter touch, and free of Meades’ often relentless pontification. This episode of 40 Minutes<\/em><\/a>, first broadcast in 1987, includes some unusual architecture\u2014a Lambton speciality\u2014but concentrates for the most part on seeking out a few surviving examples of the ad hoc museums hidden away in country houses. Among the more notable features there’s Walter Potter’s taxidermy diorama, The Death and Burial of Cock Robin<\/em>, and the full 40-minute programme showed the incredible Bowes Swan automaton in action. The copy of the film at YouTube is missing the last 10 minutes so the swan is absent although it’s easily seen elsewhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"cabinet2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities<\/a>
\n\u2022 The specimens of Alex CF<\/a>
\n\u2022 Walmor Corr\u00eaa\u2019s Memento Mori<\/a>
\n\u2022 The art of Ron Pippin<\/a>
\n\u2022 Custom creatures<\/a>
\n\u2022 Jan \u0160vankmajer: The Complete Short Films<\/a>
\n\u2022 Cryptozoology<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Bowes Swan<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Museum of Fantastic Specimens<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I still had a television I used to enjoy Lucinda Lambton’s films for the BBC, and this one\u2014a short history of the British Wunderkammer\u2014was a particular favourite. Lambton’s films cover similar ground to those of Jonathan Meades but with a lighter touch, and free of Meades’ often relentless pontification. This episode of 40 Minutes, … Continue reading “A Cabinet of Curiosities”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,19],"tags":[4059,7551,4026,7552],"class_list":["post-17122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-television","tag-jonathan-meades","tag-lucinda-lambton","tag-thackery-t-lambshead","tag-walter-potter"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-4sa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}