Among quaint fads of the 19th century, like riding bicycles or playing board games, one sticks out like a sore thumb - the Victorian-era obsession with seaweed. Affluent Victorians often spent hours painstakingly collecting, drying, and mounting these underwater plants into decorative scrapbooks.
'Anyone could appreciate and collect flowers,' says Laura Massey, a cataloguer for rare bookseller Peter Harrington. 'But painstakingly obtaining, preserving, and mounting seaweed specimens demonstrated patience, artistic talent, and the refined sensibilities necessary to appreciate the more subtle beauties of nature.' Read Collectors Weekly's interview with Laura Massey.
(thanks Hunter)
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