Museum Wormianum, 1655
Frontispiece by George Wingendorp (active 1654–1681); published by Isaac Elzevier, Leiden, the Netherlands
Photographic reproduction, 40 × 30 in. (101.6 × 76.2 cm)
Trustees of the British Museum, London, 1872,0511.1004

Two Rooms, 2003
Rosamond Purcell (b. 1942)
Photographed by Dennis Purcell (b. 1941)
Photographic reproduction, 45 × 32 in. (114.3 × 81.3 cm)
Courtesy the artist

The engraving for the frontispiece of Museum Wormianum, a book published in 1655 describing the collection of Danish medical doctor Ole Worm (1588–1654), is a famous seventeenth-century depiction of a cabinet of curiosities. Worm’s collection included animals, minerals, plants, and artifacts of human manufacture, a range of items that was typical of such collections. Rosamond Purcell reproduced the image in three dimensions as an installation at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (2003), as shown in this photograph by Dennis Purcell. It was recreated as a permanent installation at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, in 2013.