The new terminology ‘curious’ and you may ‘curiosity’ might direct me to dismiss a keen object or means and its founder otherwise collector since a handheld in the event the witty historic footnote – but Georgian curiosities encompassed significantly more than just bearded women eg Baba the fresh Turk and you can narwhale tusks which were clothed because the unicorn horns
A colourful satire away from devices-as-curiosities, and one which recommendations the fresh new try to find brand new longitude within water, was new show placed on of the common stage star Edward Shuter for the Bartholomew Reasonable out of 1760. (The fresh new star is visible in the Zoffany portrait less than away from 2 years afterwards, and he are to experience Fairness Woodcock in the common ballad opera Love during the a town.) Shuter illustrated a good ‘Magical Optician’ that have a facility within the Western Smithfield, ‘where would be seen the very strange Brand of the very best Curiosities that were actually shown to personal Glance at [including] MOMUS, an Astronomer’.
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