Sorceress' Cabinet

The smallest cabinet in the shop, shrunk onto a card: a sorceress, her shelves of glowing bottles, and one label worth finding.

A maximalist cabinet of curiosities in watercolour and ink, available as an archival fine art print.

On a black ground, a calm sorceress sits with her eyes closed among shelf after shelf of glass apothecary bottles, each one glowing a different colour. Set among them is a cutout of Green Lush, that whole green garden placed straight into the shelves, insects and all. Like the larger cabinets, this little one holds other pictures set inside it, only here the whole world fits in your hand.

If you have seen Held, you will know her: the same calm, closed-eyed woman, here keeping her own shop.

By its size it belongs with the small narratives. By its nature it is a cabinet, the same game the big ones play, shrunk down. If you fall for this one, the full Cabinet of Small Worlds is where it leads.

I painted the original at just 6 by 10 centimetres, the whole apothecary on something smaller than a postcard.

Among all those bottles, only one carries a label, and that single word holds the whole painting. I am not going to tell you what it says. It is there for the person who leans in close enough to find it.