Buchinger: Mystery In Miniature
Christopher Benfey writes: ‘Matthias Buchinger—who was born without hands or feet in Nuremberg in 1674 and never grew beyond the height of twenty-nine inches—was a magician and musician, a writing master and itinerant artist active in Britain and the Continent. His wondrous powers have been a longtime obsession of the magician and writer-savant Ricky Jay, who has collected some fifty examples of Buchinger’s baroque work, from engraved self-portraits framed with Buchinger’s characteristic arabesques and curlicues to spiraling texts that would fit on a thumbnail, now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.’ But you only have until Sunday.
