Museum Deep Dive 1: Snakes
Hey everyone! I’m an artist and historian who enjoys digging deep into the digital collections of museums. I do this fairly often, and a lot of the time I’m not really doing anything with what I find. Pair that with wanting to connect with others on topics I’m knowledgeable about, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for this post.
What exactly am I doing here? Well, I’m here to share historical art based on a unifying concept or theme. For today’s post, I’m going to be sharing art that features or otherwise includes snakes. I’ll be focusing on the Smithsonian’s open access collection for now, but I hope to include more museums in future posts.
This fun little sketch is actually an earring design from 1940 with no artist listed. It’s also marked under the catalogue status as “research in progress”, which is super cool. Who knows? Maybe there will be more information on it in the near future!
I might be cheating a little with this drawing as these are technically dragons, but I just couldn’t leave them out! This piece is from sometime between 1560 and 1600. I’m personally really fond of the faces the artist gave them.
Last but certainly not least, we have an embroidery from the mid 17th century! It’s made of silk and metal embroidery, and I can’t imagine how much time it took. I know this post is about snakes, but the other animals are here are equally as captivating.
Do you have a favorite? Know something about the movement or time period any of the pieces that I didn’t mention? I tried to keep things brief, but I’d love to get deeper into things in the comments!