Collecting nirvana
A CHILDHOOD cabinet of curiosities may be a beginning of wisdom and, certainly, it is the beginning of a lifelong collecting mania for many. The collecting instinct is innate; before it learns to speak, a child will grasp at shiny or pleasingly tactile things and develop passionate emotional ties to them. Later, there will be pebbles, feathers, coins, cards, fossils, shells, wartime shrapnel, trinkets and bangles, often carefully preserved —curated, indeed—in a special drawer or box. More focused collecting may follow. Next to me as I write is a Victorian collector’s cabinet that still contains some ofor of a Habsburg emperor, Tradescant’s Ark or the (the Green Vault) of Augustus the Strong at Dresden. Craig and Jan Finch of Finch & Co fit this theory perfectly.
