Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities

New acquisitions, unique documents, and visual and textual curiosities from the collections.

  • A Tisket, A Tasket

    January 17, 2008

    …a dog named Basket A portrait by Marie Laurencin of Basket II, Gertrude Stein’s and Alice B. Toklas’s poodle (admired by curator Tim Young)...

  • There's a moon in the sky.

    January 15, 2008

    It’s called the moon. ASTRONOMIA [card game] / LONDON / PUBLISHED BY F.G. MOON, 20, THREADNEEDLE STREET / 1829 in the Cary Collection of Playing Cards...

  • Urban puzzle

    January 10, 2008

    A wood block, lithographed puzzle featuring scenes of world cities. Publisher unknown, ca. 1880s, possibly made in Germany.

  • Folding Theory

    January 7, 2008

    From La Cocotologie: Notes pour un Traité by Miguel de Unamuno (Paris, 1946). A detailed philosophical essay on origami, with engravings by Gérard Angiolini. (...

  • 400 Blows

    January 2, 2008

    La famille quatre cents coups A surrealist artist’s book by Claude Roy [1954] Cover stars: A layout with overlay: and without: and the facing page:...

  • New Year's Greeting

    December 31, 2007

    Painted card sent to art dealer Katharine Kuh from George and Juliet Kepes. More painted cards from the Katherine Kuh papers can be viewed by searching the...

  • A Christmas Cantata

    December 24, 2007

    The Ballad of the Brown King, a Christmas Cantata, words by Langston Huges and music by Margaret Bonds

  • Humility and Innocence

    December 21, 2007

    Stacey Grimaldi, The Toilet, London, 1821. The original issue of a book form that was popular in England and then republished in the United States in the 1820s...