Natural hood from America in figure 1
Botanical plate. Catalogue of the “cabinet of curiosities” of the Dutch pharmacist Albertus Seba (1665-1736)
Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio (...)
Amsterdam: J. Westenium and G. Smith, 1734-1765, Table V
Reproduction. Bibliothèque de Genève, CYA 1867
One can get an idea of the “palmite bark bonnet” given to the Library by Butini from the one Albertus Seba himself received from Surinam: baptized a “natural hood from America”, it is reproduced in the sumptuous catalogue of his cabinet of natural curiosities. As for Butini and many others of his time, Indigenous objects were valued just as much for their materials as for their uses, linking these populations to the natural environment in which they lived. D. Buyssens

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