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Lot 453

Thomas E. Dexter's Portable Museum of Natural Substances.
Mahogany cabinet, 465 x 360 x 380 mm, with recessed brass carrying handle and hinged doors at the front opening to six drawers of specimens of minerals, metals, animal specimens and man-made articles,

5 December 2018, 14:00 EST
New York

US$2,000 - US$3,000

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Thomas E. Dexter's Portable Museum of Natural Substances.

Mahogany cabinet, 465 x 360 x 380 mm, with recessed brass carrying handle and hinged doors at the front opening to six drawers of specimens of minerals, metals, animal specimens and man-made articles, two labels on the inner doors printed "Patronised by Her Majesty. Portable Museum of Natural Substances Raw and Manufactured from the Mineral, Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms," and "Illustrative of the Imports, Exports, Productions & Manufacturers of Great Britain and her Colonies compiled by Thomas E. Dexter, Royal Military Asylum, Chelsea." Together with an accompanying book by Dexter: Animal and Vegetable Substances Used in the Arts and Manufactures.... London: A.N. Myers, [1860].

An amazingly varied assemblage of product specimens from the height of the British Empire. Thomas Dexter describes the cabinet in his preference to Animal and Vegetable Substances: "The collection will be found invaluable in pointing out the extent and variety of our import and export trade, the source of our commercial greatness, and useful in every branch of that sound and practical education which has for its object the preparation of the Pupil to enact his part in the busy scene of life" (p iv).

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