In 1826 Karl Friedrich Schinkel, visiting Sir John Soane’s already famous house museum at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London, anticipated countless later visitors in finding the experience at once bewildering and exciting: Architectural and sculptural fragments, paintings, and models were crowded into tight spaces lit from skylights and windows, exhibited in a way that Schinkel called “most adventurous”—but perhaps also “riskiest” (43; 203, n. 1). Another German expert described the museum as a doll’s house stuffed with a dealer’s leftover stock. Yet other visitors adored it: Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter felt it was a delightful honeycomb.
In John Soane’s Cabinet of Curiosities, Bruce Boucher, who served as director of Sir John Soane’s Museum for some seven years, brings out the heroic yet controversial figure of Soane in full relief, emulating the architect’s own use of light, color, and shadow to maximize the drama of his assemblages. Boucher recognizes Soane’s...
University of California Press