The Natural Historian

• Main Author: Brockliss, L V B
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 2002
• Subjects: narwhal*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199247486.003.0006; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52507630/isbn-9780199247486-book-part-6.pdf

Abstract As we have seen, no one who stepped inside Calvet’s house in the Rue Pugelle in the last decade of his life would have ever doubted that he was a collector of antiquities. Such a visitor might never have suspected, on the other hand, that the Avignon physician possessed a natural-history collection. According to the inventory taken of Calvet’s household effects in 1810, the only natural-history items on display were the rib of a young whale and a narwhal’s tusk, both to be found in his cabinet d ‘ ‘etudes. Like his coins, his natural-history collection was largely kept out of sight, chiefly hidden in four cupboards, marked, so his testament informs us, A to D. One cupboard was kept in the box-room at the end of the hall, which entered onto the garden. The other three were kept in the attic (see Fig. 1.3). whether Calvet had displayed part or all of his natural- history collection earlier in his life is not known. whatever the truth of the matter, in the 1800s it must have been largely out of his own as well as his visitors ‘ sight. Given that Calvet was increasingly incapacitated in the last decade of his life and that his trusted servant, The ‘ re’se, was also getting on in years, he can have had little opportunity to view his treasures. Perhaps by then he had lost interest in the collection and tidied it away for posterity. 2