{"id":8629,"date":"2011-01-10T02:14:45","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T02:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=8629"},"modified":"2025-09-20T23:42:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T22:42:42","slug":"the-colmore-fatagravures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2011\/01\/10\/the-colmore-fatagravures\/","title":{"rendered":"The Colmore Fatagravures"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"colmore1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Golden Fairy Specimen.<\/em><\/p>\n

These have already been featured on many other sites but that shouldn’t exclude their presence here. The Wunderkammer<\/em> concept seems to be a recurrent fascination on the web\u2014see here<\/a> and here<\/a> and here<\/a>, for example\u2014possibly because the nature of the medium lends itself to the accumulation of curiosities. It’s a small step from collecting genuine curios to inventing those the world stubbornly refuses to provide, that’s what we see happening here and also at some of the earlier posts below. About the Colmore Fatagravures<\/a> we’re told:<\/p>\n

A Scottish adventurer, inventor, and photographer named Neville Colmore claimed to have constructed a device capable of “…parting the veil of Faery…”. The device, which he called the “Spectobarathrum”, produced beautiful photo graphic plates he called “fatagravures”, through a now lost process. The original “Spectobarathrum” along with all of the images he claimed to have made were believed destroyed in a fire. (More<\/a>.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"colmore2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

French Harpy of Questionable Provenance.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a similar vein, I’ve already mentioned that I’ve done some design and illustration for the Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities<\/em>, the sequel to the Lambshead Disease Guide<\/em><\/a> which is forthcoming from HarperCollins. The new book is edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer and publication has been announced for June. Jeff unveiled the near-final cover design<\/a> just before Christmas (not my work, I should note) and a preview of some of the contents, including one of my interior pages. More about this closer to publication.<\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The specimens of Alex CF<\/a>
\n\u2022 Walmor Corr\u00eaa\u2019s Memento Mori<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harpya by Raoul Servais<\/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 Museum of Fantastic Specimens<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Golden Fairy Specimen. These have already been featured on many other sites but that shouldn’t exclude their presence here. The Wunderkammer concept seems to be a recurrent fascination on the web\u2014see here and here and here, for example\u2014possibly because the nature of the medium lends itself to the accumulation of curiosities. It’s a small step … Continue reading “The Colmore Fatagravures”<\/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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,21,12,41],"tags":[1400,949,375,142,1663,4026],"class_list":["post-8629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-fantasy","category-photography","category-sculpture","tag-alex-cf","tag-ann-vandermeer","tag-jan-svankmajer","tag-jeff-vandermeer","tag-raoul-servais","tag-thackery-t-lambshead"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-2fb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8629","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=8629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}