Research Catalog
The Duchess's shells : natural history collecting in the age of Cook's voyages
- Title
- The Duchess's shells : natural history collecting in the age of Cook's voyages / Beth Fowkes Tobin.
- Author
- Tobin, Beth Fowkes
- Publication
- New Haven : Yale University Press, [2014]
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFF 15-1216 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- xi, 316 pages : illustrations (chiefly color); 26 cm
- Summary
- "Margaret Cavendish Bentinck, the 2nd Duchess of Portland (1715-1785), was one of the wealthiest women in eighteenth-century Britain. She collected fine and decorative arts (the Portland Vase was her most famous acquisition), but her great love was natural history, and shells in particular. Over the course of twenty years, she amassed the largest shell collection of her time, which was sold after her death in a spectacular auction. Beth Fowkes Tobin illuminates the interlocking issues surrounding the global circulation of natural resources, the commodification of nature, and the construction of scientific value through the lens of one woman's marvelous collection. This unique study tells the story of the collection's formation and dispersal-about the sailors and naturalists who ferried rare specimens across oceans and the dealers' shops and connoisseurs' cabinets on the other side of the world. Exquisitely illustrated, this book brings to life Enlightenment natural history and its cultures of collecting, scientific expeditions, and vibrant visual culture"--
- Subjects
- History > Expeditions et Discoveries > bisacsh
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women
- SCIENCE / History
- BIOGRAPHY et AUTOBIOGRAPHY > Women > bisacsh
- HISTORY / Expeditions & Discoveries
- HISTORY / Modern / 18th Century
- History > Modern > 18th century > bisacsh
- Natural history > England > History > 18th century
- Shells > Collectors and collecting > England > History > 18th century
- Shells > England > Private collections
- Portland, Margaret Cavendish Holles Harley Bentinck, Duchess of, 1715-1785 > Natural history collections
- Science > History > bisacsh
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- Introduction: The catalogue and the collection -- 1. The Duchess, natural history, and cultures of collecting -- 2. The Duchess and shell collecting -- 3. Patronage, brokers, and networks of exchange -- 4. Pacific shells, Cook's voyages, and the question of value -- 5. Patronage, publication, and the illustrated conchology book -- 6. The dispersal of the collection -- 7. Lost legacies : the Duchess's shells in the nineteenth century.
- Call Number
- JFF 15-1216
- ISBN
- 9780300192230 (hardback)
- 0300192231 (hardback)
- LCCN
- 2013042768
- OCLC
- 862098393
- Author
- Tobin, Beth Fowkes, author.
- Title
- The Duchess's shells : natural history collecting in the age of Cook's voyages / Beth Fowkes Tobin.
- Publisher
- New Haven : Yale University Press, [2014]
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Research Call Number
- JFF 15-1216