An Infinity Of Things: How Sir Henry Wellcome Collected The World
by Frances Larson /
2009 / English / PDF
3.7 MB Download
Richly illustrated throughout, including 8 pages of color plates,
Richly illustrated throughout, including 8 pages of color plates,An Infinity of Things
An Infinity of Things tells the story of the greatest
private collection ever made, and the life of the man behind it.
American-born Henry Wellcome made his millions as one of the
world's first pharmaceutical entrepreneurs. Drawing on his massive
wealth, he planned a great museum filled with treasures from all
corners of the globe, charting the history of human health from
prehistory to the present day. Demonstrating what can happen when a
collector's aspirations are left unconstrained by wealth, Frances
Larson explores Wellcome's life through his possessions, revealing
the many tensions in his character: between his talents as a
businessman and his desire for scholarly recognition; his curiosity
and his perfectionism; and his philanthropic aspirations and his
drive for personal glory. During the opening decades of the
twentieth century he acquired a collection so large that later
generations of staff took to describing its contents by the ton.
But Wellcome's museum was never finished, and his collection was
still stored in vast warehouses when he died, unseen and
incomplete.
tells the story of the greatest
private collection ever made, and the life of the man behind it.
American-born Henry Wellcome made his millions as one of the
world's first pharmaceutical entrepreneurs. Drawing on his massive
wealth, he planned a great museum filled with treasures from all
corners of the globe, charting the history of human health from
prehistory to the present day. Demonstrating what can happen when a
collector's aspirations are left unconstrained by wealth, Frances
Larson explores Wellcome's life through his possessions, revealing
the many tensions in his character: between his talents as a
businessman and his desire for scholarly recognition; his curiosity
and his perfectionism; and his philanthropic aspirations and his
drive for personal glory. During the opening decades of the
twentieth century he acquired a collection so large that later
generations of staff took to describing its contents by the ton.
But Wellcome's museum was never finished, and his collection was
still stored in vast warehouses when he died, unseen and
incomplete.