Cabinets of Curiosities were encyclopaedias of physical information that were particularly popular in the 17th and 18th centuries; the cabinet was usually a room and the curiosities the culmination of individual research. Collections for the sake of collecting, they reflected the collector’s interests and recorded items yet without category at a time when myth was touching upon reality and science testing the limits of belief. In England perhaps the most famous example of such a cabinet is the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, the foundation of the British Museum.

This page represents only a small part of our vast collection of original Antique prints. Please click on an image to see it in high-resolution, with details of the work itself. If you have a special request or are looking for something out of the ordinary, please do contact us.

Common Marmoset with snail and pink dog rose. Owned by the mid-wife Sidney Cannon who delivered George III and was renowned as an avid collector of curiosities; much of her collection was bought by Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford.

The Moskstraumen or Maelstom, a system of fast moving whirpools in the Lofoten archipelago Norway, first mentioned by the ancient Greek historian Pytheas (4th century BC).

SOLD American Revolution: Toppling the statue of George III on the Bowling Green, New York city’s oldest park on Broadway. The statue of George III in Roman garb by the sculptor Joseph Wilton was pulled down by Capt. Oliver Brown and 40 sailors and soldiers in 1776 to be turned into musket balls.

Skeleton and fourth order of muscles by Jan Wandelaar: Anterior view with Clara, the Indian Rhinoceros, a celebrity in the 18th century.

Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger). Thylacinus cynocephalus. A pair captured near Launceston and drawn from life at the Zoological Society’s Vivarium. Extinct in the wild by 1930, the last captive died in 1936.

Mount Tarawera: Spectacular depiction from Waitangi at Lake Tarawera of the catastrophic eruption in 1886.

SOLD The amateur palaeontologist and fossil shop owner Mary Anning discovered the Iichthyosaurus, the first complete fossil found in England, in 1812.

SOLDThe illusionistic circular battle panorama of Trafalgar, now lost, was invented by Henry Barker. The viewer stepped up into the centre illuminated by daylight to be given the sense of being in the midst of battle.

Britons (Aborigines of England): Couple armed, tattooed and painted with woad.

SOLD. Flags of Nations to include flags of pirates, the Barbary Rovers and Bloody Sallee, and companies, the short lived Brandenburg West India and formidable British East India.

Shooting Flying: The first mention of shooting flying birds rather than perched birds is by Blome. The new fashion probably began with the return of Charles II from exile.

King Outina of the Timucua consulting his magician prior to battle. Based on the 1591 engraving after Jacques le Moyne de Morgues, artist on René de Laudonnière’s 1564 expedition.

Dendera: Egyptian Planisphere from the ceiling of a shrine dedicated to the god Osiris in the temple of Hathor at Dendera. Renowned as the only complete map of an ancient sky.

Skeleton and fourth order of muscles by Jan Wandelaar: Posterior view with Clara, the Indian Rhinoceros, a celebrity in the 18th century.

View of an equestrian performance at Astley’s Amphitheatre:. Former cavalryman Philip Astley is considered the father of the modern circus with his invention of the circus ring at his riding school in 1768.