Dernières acquisitions

Mais dernières acquisitions, qui datent du Kensington Dollhouse Festival de Londres, étaient restées dans les cartons faute de temps pour les installer et prendre les photos.

C'est encore le cabinet de curiosités qui a bénéficié de toute mon attention. Là ça devient vraiment très encombré, je ne sais pas si je vais encore pouvoir en ajouter beaucoup.......

Mon amie Catherine m'avait ramené cette superbe machoire de requin, tout à fait à sa place dans le cabinet de curiosités. J'ai ajouté quelques livres et planches d'étude. La chaise est de Kim Selwood.

La collection égyptienne manquait de bronzes. Heureusement Neil Carter est là pour réduire au 1/12ème les statuettes du trésor de Toutankhamon.

J'ai enfermé sous globe un petit Bernard l'Hermite réalisé par Hannah Hawkins - Once Upon a Time Miniatures. A côté, d' autres globes dont un memento mori de Truly Scrumptious Miniatures.

Et pour finir, un mini Titanic de Paul Briggs of Nottingham. Indispensable dans une maison construite en 1912-13.

Senet an egyptian game

I finished a new piece for my Egyptian collection. An antique game board  called senet.

 

The Egyptians believed that the decease had to be a successful player at that game to win a passage to the other world, in order to live eternally in the kingdom of Osiris. Senet boards were often placed or depicted in the tomb, they were useful help in the dangerous journey through the Afterlife.
The Senet gameboard has 30 squares, three rows of ten, and two sets of 5 pawns. There are 4 sticks with one marked side. The original Egyptian rules are still unknown, we can only guess....

Je viens de terminer une nouvelle pièce pour le collection égyptienne du Cabinet de Curiosités : un jeu de Senet.
Les Egyptiens croyaient que le défunt devait jouer, et gagner, à ce jeu pour assurer le passage vers la vie éternelle et le séjour dans le Royaume d'Osiris. Les jeux de Senet étaient souvent placés dans les tombes, ou représentés sur leurs parois, afin de faciliter le dangereux voyage du mort dans l'Au-delà.
Le jeu comportait 30 cases, réparties en 3 rangées de 10, et 2 jeux de 5 pions. Il y avait également 4 bâtonnets servant de dés. Les règles originales sont malheureusement inconnues, on ne peut que faire des suppositions....

A dragon in my cabinet

Merci pour tous vos sympatiques commentaires concernant la maison Art Nouveau, intérieur et extérieur.

Ces derniers temps, il n'y a pas eu de grand changement dans le Cabinet de Curiosités, mais j'ajoute régulièrement de nouveaux objets.

J'ai callé  ma momie royale égyptienne dans un coin, près d'une statue d'Anubis sortie tout droit de la tombe de Toutankhamon. Ma plus belle acquisition récente est un petit dragon chinois, d'une incroyable précision, fait en verre de Murano par Vitreus Ignis.

 

Thank you for all your kind comments about the living room and the outside of the Art Nouveau house. Recently, I didn't make big changes in the Cabinet of Curiosities. I'm always searching for outstanding antiques to add in  the setting.

That's the actual look of the Cabinet, with my Royal Egyptian Mummy standing in the corner, near a statue of Anubis just taken from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

I'm very happy with this little one : a perfect Chinese dragon. Believe it or not, it's made of Murano glass by Vitreus Ignis. It looks like ivory...and it's milky white glass.

 

I also added some precious stones and shells to the collection, of  which an ammonite fossil, gift from a nice French miniaturist.

 

J'ai aussi ajouté quelques pierres et coquillages précieux et un fossile d'ammonite qui m'a été offert par une sympathique miniaturiste française.

 

 

The shelves are now filled with bones and stones, books and glasses.

I still have place for new discoveries....

 

Entre les pierres, les coquillages, les livres et les verreries il reste encore de la place pour de nouvelles découvertes.

 

 

 

Blackout

I worked on my dollhouse this week. The windows of the living room, on the ground floor, are ready.

 

I picked out a colour similar to the door, a kind of fake cherry wood. The design matches the first floor windows. The front of the house is squeaky clean.

I decided to finish the decoration of the living room by adding curtains to the windows of the dining room and an Art Nouveau divider between the two rooms.

Everything was ready to take pictures of my "great work"...and Aaaargh... the electricity in the dollhouse isn't working anymore. The living room is in the dark. I didn't check after the moving if the circuit was all right. I think it's the fuse and I don't have any left. I have to wait for a delivery...The poor lighting outside isn't helping, I will take pictures NEXT TIME !

 

 

Meanwhile I have made some new shoes. Fake snake [chicken legs] in a light blue grey for the bedroom.

I hope the light will come back soon, I want to show you the novelties of the curiosities cabinet !

 

Art Nouveau House

Summer is over at last, and so is my moving. My Art Nouveau house has found a new home in my living room. I also had some time to make new minis.

It has been a long time since I posted pictures of my house. The front is not completely finished, it lacks windows and balustrade.

 

I have an Egyptian Mummy in my Curiosities Cabinet. As you can see, it's a royal one with fine linen wrapping and a golden diadem. I'm still unsure about the datation, maybe an unknown king of the XIIth Dynasty.

Little additions before the great migration.

Moving dollhouses and miniatures is worse than moving 1/1 furniture. Some of you are in the same situation, and for me it's not the first experience, but it takes so much time to pack all the little curiosities of "The Cabinet"....
I can't resist to add some little objects before they get wrapped in bubbles and boxes, even if this doesn't help the efficiency of the packing process.

 

During the KDF I bought two birds from Tiny Tails Miniatures  to finish  some display under globe. Actually I made two, one with the birds and one with real shells and a sand rose, decorated with fake coral.

I'm really happy with the colours in the globe, they match perfectly those of the cabinet.

 

Je commence à empaqueter les miniatures du "Cabinet de Curiosités". Ce n'est pas très rapide et, comme je retrouve de petites choses en attente, je fais encore quelques dioramas sous globe...côté efficacité, je ne suis pas sur la bonne voie. Des oiseaux de Tiny Tails Miniatures, une rose des sables et des coquillages, du faux corail....Je suis assez contente du résultat. Il ne reste plus qu'à les emballer !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minerals, shells and fossils

I had a lot of shells, crystals and minerals in my drawers. I began to collect them a year ago, with my Curiosities Cabinet in mind.
Last week I bought two very nice fossils from https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Lilliputstreasures. They are very finely painted and such a finding for my cabinet.
It was time to organise a new display and to add the few pieces I collected for the room during the summer.

In addition to the fossils - dinosaurs - I set in the layout a turtle shell, an amethyst geode, trays full of shells, antique bones and minerals : a tiny piece of meteorite, dravite, tourmaline and kunzite. There is more to come, I'm waiting for some crystals shaped in pyramids.

 

 

I found an old furniture kit in my shelves, it's a Shenandoah Designs  Tiered Server that I completely forgot. It would be perfect for more minerals display.

 

With some effects for the fun.

 

 

The final results. In front a round bottle full of golden flakes and an old camera, gift from my daughter.

 

 

Asian corner

The Asian corner is officially open in the Curiosities Cabinet.

 

I recently added a nicely made statuette in my personnal collection of Buddhist/Hindu artefacts. The beginning of a new corner in my Cabinet, only consisting of religious statues for the moment. The left one (the new one) comes from Seribatu, Patrick Duclou's new Etsy shop. It's a Guanyin, the female bodhisattva of compassion, venerated by East Asian Buddhists. She's riding on a turtle supporting the world on its carapace. The right one represents the same bodhisattva. The one with the elephant head is a Ganesh, a widely worshipped Hindu deity. He is the "Remover of Obstacles". The last one sitting on the right is Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, arts and science.

 

 

I placed them on top of the display cabinet in order to study them.

 

And now, back in the shelves ! Here's a picture of the latest arrangements.

New curiosities

I came back this Sunday from the new City of London Dollshouse Festival with some new findings.
Today I'll show you the pieces I bought for my Curiosities Cabinet.

 





Once more, Cilla Albert, from Minst.com, has made just the right thing for my cabinet. I already had two coral pieces, and now I have the shells under globe. I had to change the shape of the shelves and add a nice curve to be able to put the three items together. On the picture, one of the corals is almost hidden. I'm a poor photographer !

 

On the lower shelve, I have two new curiosities : a shell fossil and a dinosaur spine. The latter is in fact a part of a squirrel spinal column, but nobody knows it. That was a gift from my daughter. I've made the setting this morning.

 

 

 

I also got the perfect armchair for my cabinet. The original is the Swan chair designed by Charles Voysey, an English architect and furniture designer. His work was influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Art Nouveau. His famous Swan chair was designed between 1883 and 1885. The tiny one in my Cabinet is the work of Small-time miniatures. A master piece !

 

 

Here's a new picture of the whole cabinet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tinysaur

 

I've found the perfect addition for my cabinet : a model Triceratops so tiny it can stand on my 1:12 scale table in the curiosities cabinet.

 

It's so tiny, I have to use my magnifier to punch out the pieces and my supertiny exacto to cut them out.

 

 

Now I have a wonderful Tinyceratops in my cabinet. If this is not a curiosity !

 

Cabinets de Curiosités

Hello and welcome “followers’, I’m really happy to see you here, and to read that you like my miniatures. Sometimes, when you are alone with your PC and your camera, you don’t know if what you are doing is wrong or right, especially when you try to compare with the other blogs full of wonderful  miniatures and dream houses. Whatever !

I’m working  on a house – that I’ve had for almost two years! – where I plan to fit out a Cabinet of Curiosities . It’s a long shot idea and the very reason why I called this blog “Petit Cabinet de Curiosités”. I just bought an excellent book on all kind of cabinets from the Sixteen century to present days  and I can’t resist to show it. It’s really an extraordinary book both for text and photos.

Patrick Mauriès - Cabinets de Curiosités –Gallimard 2002.

The original edition is in English, published by Thames and Hudson, but is very difficult to find. I’m sure that miniaturists can find in it a basket full of new ideas. Now, the challenge is to convert ideas into objects!