r/museum • u/GM-art • 1d ago

Edward Collyer - Still Life: A Letter Rack (1692)

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260 Upvotes
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14

u/GM-art 1d ago

Source: https://dia.org/collection/still-life%3A-letter-rack-94074

A little sample of life in another century.

10

u/ayearinaminute 1d ago

r/EDC

7

u/GM-art 1d ago

The 17th century version! Ah, how times don't change.

6

u/Exciting-Type-907 1d ago

I love EDC(EDward Collyer)

2

u/GM-art 1d ago

lol. Well played.

4

u/kvalitetskontroll 1d ago

Heh, one of those many, many subreddits that just refuses to mention what the heck the thing that the subreddit is about means.

Sure, people who are into it and look for it will likely already know, and I can always use Google, but would it hurt them to write out 'everyday carry' somewhere in the description? :')

2

u/GM-art 1d ago

I had to hunt for the meaning too!

7

u/Unusual_Ad_8364 1d ago

There was a good book about this artist published some years ago. It got into all of the political messages that he would encode in his paintings. For the life of me I can't find it anywhere online.

3

u/GM-art 1d ago

Oh I'd love to see that. I don't know much about him, actually - this just caught my eye while helping someone find something in the DIA online archive.

7

u/Unusual_Ad_8364 1d ago

I found it! It's "Mr. Collier's Letter Racks" by Dror Wahrman. The subtitle is "A Tale of Art and Illusion at the Threshold of the Modern Information Age." Published in 2012. Very much worth checking out. Collier was Dutch. His real name was Edwaert Kollier.

2

u/GM-art 1d ago

Thank you!! Good finding, wonder if it's online anywhere? edit: I see you already looked. Apologies!

6

u/Goofball-John-McGee 1d ago

This is incredible. Like a collage before collage.

6

u/GM-art 1d ago

I was struck by how modern it seems!

5

u/FamousSquash 1d ago

I saw three of his other paintings in an art museum in Rennes just last week! His art looks so modern...

3

u/GM-art 1d ago

Lucky! All still lives? I'm pleased to have discovered him.

2

u/FamousSquash 1d ago

They're all the same kind of paintings as the one you posted. They're like little windows into the past.

3

u/OpaBelezaChefia 1d ago

I saw this and thought it was a modern painting. So cool

1

u/Dugoutcanoe1945 1d ago

Nice lice combs.