Marco’s Cabinet
Over the years, I have accumulated rather a lot of things.
Old cameras, books, bottles, plates, tools, photographic equipment, forgotten instruments and objects whose original purpose was not always immediately obvious. Some came from flea markets and antique shops, others from boxes in small villages, house clearances or simply places where I happened to stop.
I have never really collected according to a plan. I buy things because they catch my eye.
Sometimes I use them in photographs. Sometimes I buy them because of the craftsmanship, the patina or a manufacturer's mark. Occasionally it is the story attached to an object that interests me. And sometimes, quite simply, I have no idea what something is and want to find out.
That curiosity is really what The Cabinet is about.
This is not an antique shop or a carefully catalogued collection. It is an evolving archive of objects that have passed through my hands and the stories I have discovered around them.
For each one, I will photograph what interests me, record what I know, and, when possible, try to uncover something about its history, its maker, its original use, or the people and places connected with it.
There will inevitably be mysteries. Stories told by dealers that cannot be verified. Dates that are approximate. Marks I cannot identify. Objects whose history has disappeared completely.
I rather like that.
Where something is uncertain, I will say so. A good story does not become better by turning a possibility into a fact.
Some of the objects in The Cabinet are part of my collection and are not for sale. Others I am quite happy to let go. Occasionally I may not have decided yet.
When an object is available, you will find that information on its page. If it eventually finds a new home, its page will remain here. The object may have left my cabinet, but its photographs and story haven't.
So this is partly a collection, partly an archive, partly an excuse to investigate strange things I find in markets around Italy, Slovenia, Hungary and wherever else I happen to be.
And, inevitably, probably an excuse to bring home a few more things I absolutely don't need.
PS. These days my main supplier is a great guy and a friend … Daniel!
LIST:
Two Italian Military Hospital Plates, “Sanità Militare”
Two Italian military plates found in an antique shop in Szentgotthárd, Hungary, carrying the mark “Sanità Militare.” Their journey from Italy to a small Hungarian border town comes with a story, although how much of it is true remains a mystery.
Löwy Miksa’s Tailor’s Display Rack, Győr
An early 20th-century advertising display from Löwy Miksa’s gentlemen’s and military tailoring shop at Baross út 24 in Győr. Original painted lettering, iron hooks and, wonderfully, the shop’s telephone number: 416.
The Forgotten Zorki from Nagyréde
A five-euro Soviet rangefinder found in Hungary with an undeveloped roll of Fujicolor still inside. A faded photo-shop label provided one more clue: an address in the village of Nagyréde.
Ferrania Fotografare e’ Facile
A small Ferrania handbook from 1953 promised post-war Italy that photography was easy.
Seventy years later, the promise has come true. Making a good photograph is another matter.
The Camera Before the Photographer
A tiny camera from the 1890s that once belonged to my father, long before I became a photographer.
More than a century later, The Kombi somehow found its way into my Cabinet.
The Camera That Started Everything
My parents gave me this 1962 Leica M3 when I was around twenty; it was my first camera.
I couldn't have known then that photography would eventually become my life.
625 Impossible Animals
A small Viennese game promising 625 ridiculous combinations, found decades later in Szentgotthárd.
A wonderfully analogue world where animals can become almost anything.
Before Leaving the House
Two small porcelain holy-water fonts, found in Szentgotthárd, once belonged to the quiet rituals of an ordinary Catholic home.
A touch of water, the sign of the cross, and then out into the world.
The Knocker from Sithean
A small cast-metal door knocker that once announced visitors to Sithean, our remote Scottish cottage named after the Gaelic fairy hill. Its maker is unknown, but the hands that lifted it have left their own record in the worn metal.
My Father, a Rolleiflex and a Very Large Camera
My father was an accountant, not a photographer. Yet he owned a Rolleiflex and worked for Lamperti & Garbagnati, the Milanese photographic manufacturer whose enormous wooden camera somehow ended up with me too.
An Astrolabe That May Never Have Measured a Star
An engraved brass astrolabe, bought from a Swiss antique dealer forty years ago and probably dating from around 1900. A scientific instrument, a decorative imitation, or something somewhere between the two?