Reading - Cabinet of Curiosities
Kunstkammer (Ger.: pl. Kunstkammern: art chamber). The private art collection, principally as developed during the 16th century in central and northern Europe.
1: The Concept of the Kunstkammer. The word is first reported in 1550 in connection with Emperor Ferdinand I, describing a self-contained collection of paintings, precious objects, goblets, games and natural-history specimens located somewhere unspecified in Vienna. The term Wunderkammer (collection of Curiosities) occurs a little later, describing a room containing rare natural history specimens such as corals, but above all abnormalities such as mandrakes and misshapen antlers… The focus of each Kunstkammer depended on the inclinations of the collector: any definition of the concept can only therefore be based on an ideal model, with 16th century inventories and writings. According to these the Kunst and Wunderkammer was an all-embracing museum in which the world and all it brought forth, right through the untreated natural produce to skillfully wrought artefacts, were accorded equal value and treated entirely as one. The spectrum between these two poles could be divided into many sections. The group of natural history specimens included minerals (samples of ore, precious and semiprecious stone), fossils, botanical items (wood, fruits, nuts, dried plants) and zoological items (stuffed or mounted animals, horns, teeth, mollusk shells, eggs, skins and shells or husks). These might be interesting for the remoteness of their origin (e.g. corals), their deviating form (e.g. animal deformities) or some special significance attached to them (e.g. bezoar, the excrement of a species of Persian goat used as a cure for melancholy) – or of course simply as representatives of a species (e.g. dried plants).
Among the artefacts there were works of art of every category: painting, sculpture, gold and silversmithing, textiles, metalworks, ceramics; objects fashioned from raw materials (ivory, amber, horn, rock crystal and semiprecious stones), small wax sculptures, jewelry and ornaments, coins and medals, small pieces of furniture; graphic work (copper engravings, woodcuts, drawings and watercolours), books (manuscripts and printed volumes) and documents. “ Scientifica” (i.e. scientific utensils and instruments, clocks and globes) formed a separate group within the artefacts. “Exotica” from far-off lands showed how far the collector could extend his powers of acquisition. Foremost in these were examples of Asiatic art (porcelain, pictures on silk, lacquerwork objects, textiles, ivory, stone engravings etc.) and products from North and West Africa (textiles, ivory)…
The finest Kunstkammer to be formed by a Habsburg was owned by Emperor Rudolf II, and was kept in his residence at Prague Castle.