Curiosities from the collection of Sir Hans
Sloane (1660-1753)
It was the collection of Sir Hans Sloane
(1660-1753), one of the great collectors of the eighteenth century,
that helped to found the British Museum. During his lifetime Sloane
amassed a huge number of natural specimens, hand-made items and a
large library. In assembling these items Sloane favoured the rare,
the exotic and the exceptional as examples of the mysteries of
nature. Many of the natural history specimens were in their
original state, but Sloane also collected examples that had been
made more beautiful or more curious through human
ingenuity.
One of these was
a glove knitted from the silky filaments produced by a species of
large mussel. It was one of a pair which Sloane described as being
'made of the beard of the pinna
marina in Andalaousia in Spaine sent me by
his Grace the Duke of
Richmond'.
Another
of these curiosities was a nautilus shell carved with a scene of
the 1639 defeat by the Dutch Admiral Martin Tromp of the Spanish
off Dover. Sloane thought that the shell was wonderful because of
its natural, geometrically perfect proportions. But he also valued
it as a crafted object that commemorated a historical
event.
K. Sloan (ed.), Enlightenment. Discovering the (London, The British Museum Press, 2003)
A. MacGregor (ed.), Sir Hans Sloane, collector, sc (London, The British Museum Press, 1994)