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Top 10: unusual and bizarre pieces from the KBR collection

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KBR preserves not only millions of books, but also many bizarre – or at least remarkable – objects. We list 10 unusual oddities for you.

10. Board game from the 19th century

We have been playing board games since the 16th century, but the boards themselves have rarely stood the test of time. This is a rare print form from the 19th century, engraved by an anonymous artist. Various game boards were probably printed with this woodcut. Incidentally, the KBR preserves an entire collection of historic board games. Some of them are from the National Lottery collection, which was put into storage in 2022.

  • Belgium, 19th century
  • Technique: woodcut
  • Dimensions: 30 x 40 cm
  • Provenance: Acquired in 1948 by Madame Carlier of Ixelles and purchased by the KBR.
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9. Sardine can with poetry

Is it literature or is it art? Chris Ferket (1929-2009) created various extraordinary object books. ‘Ingeblikt Heimwee’ (Canned Homesickness) consists of four rolls of parchment hidden in a box of half-opened sardines. The reader is invited to taste the words …

  • Belgium, 1978
  • Dimensions: 11 x 8 cm
  • Provenance: deposited through the legal deposit system
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8. The oldest toothbrush in Europe?

This little book is entitled ‘Heures Royales’. It likely dates from the time of Louis XV (1710-1774). It appears to be an ‘ordinary’ royal book of hours, as the title suggests. Books of Hours were used by the laity in the Middle Ages, to pray. But appearances can be deceptive: the sides are made to imitate the cut of a book, but there is no paper inside. What it does actually contain is a mirror and a case with scissors, an ear spoon and a toothbrush. Nothing special, except that the toothbrush was only introduced at the court of Louis XV. Is this perhaps the oldest toothbrush in Europe then?

  • France, 18th century
  • Dimensions: 11.2 x 7.7 cm
  • Provenance: Library of Mrs. Louis Solvay. Mrs. Solvay collected old books with unusual book bindings. In 1961, she decide to donate her collection to the Royal Library of Belgium after her death.
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7. A banana

This edition is entitled (in Dutch) ‘The Twelve Hunting Times of Banana’. The book contains twelve erotic poems by Walter Beckers, printed on loose sheets and kept in a plexiglass box containing a floating ‘banana’. This artist’s book was published in 1972 in a run of 50 copies. The banana, as you likely suspected, is not a real one.

Description

  • Kalmthout, 1972
  • Dimensions: 56 x 34 cm
  • Provenance: deposited through the legal deposit system
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6. A knitted chicken and chicken bones

Another artist’s book, Bartleby & Co is an art project by Thorsten Baensch. This work from 2004 is called, unsurprisingly, Chicken. The artwork, packaged in a seemingly ordinary box, includes a pale pink knitted chicken, a box of chicken bones, a booklet with 6 recipes (in French, English, German and Japanese) and a DVD with a video showing a woman devouring half a chicken.

  • Brussels, 2004
  • Dimensions: 16 pages, 18 x 26 cm
  • Provenance: deposited through the legal deposit system
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5. Menu created by James Ensor

KBR receives literary books via the legal deposit system, but also telephone books or cookbooks. Menus don’t need to be filed in the system. And nevertheless, there are some in our collection. In each case, they are richly decorated examples made for special events. Like this menu James Ensor created for a wedding dinner on 10 November 1896. This is the showpiece of a larger collection of menus designed by Belgian artists in the 19th and 20th centuries.

  • Belgium, 1896
  • Technique: etching
  • Dimensions: 18.2 x 13.5 cm
  • Provenance: Purchased in 1959.
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4. “Sortie” sign

This sign used to mark the emergency exit at the famous Alhambra Theatre in Brussels. It came to KBR from the collection of collector Marc Danval. This fund includes the archives of the theatre (which was demolished), in addition to over 2,000 illustrated musical scores and more than 12,000 78-, 45- and 33-rpm records.

Description

  • Dimensions: 17 x 31 cm
  • Provenance: part of the Marc Danval Fund, which the KBR was able to purchase in 2010.
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3. Musical tablecloth from 1548

KBR preserves various musical documents: scores and manuscripts, as well as this small linen tablecloth. Benedictus Appenzeller composed a four-part canon in 1548. This exclusive print was made on linen, in addition to the version on paper made especially for his patroness Mary of Hungary. It was intended to be made into music from a table, with two singers on each side. 

  • Habsburg Empire (Augsburg), 1548
  • Dimensions: 41 x 43 cm
  • Provenance: From the collection of Mary of Hungary.
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2. Dagger of the pharaoh Kamose

This dagger is by far the oldest object in our collection. Excavated in Egypt in 1857, it belonged to the Pharaoh Kamose (1554-1550/49 B.C.). The dagger is part of the collection of Baron Lucien de Hirsch, who died at the age of 30. His mother bequeathed the collection to the Belgian state. In addition to 1,877 Greek and Roman coins in pristine condition and an extensive library, the vases, figurines and archaeological objects that adorned his workspace were also part of this donation.

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1. Book made of human skin

Un livre figure dans cette liste ? Certes. Mais il ne s’agit pas d’un livre ordinaire. « Essai sur les lieux et les dangers des A book in this list? Definitely. But this is no ordinary book. “Essai sur les lieux et les dangers des sépultures” is bound in human skin. This practice even has a name: anthropodermic bibliopegy. There are 18 books around the world that research has confirmed are bound in human skin. So this is one of them. We do not know whose skin was used for this book.

Watch the report on YouTube.

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