A piece of art made up of an assembly of stones representing a view of Prague Castle.
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Cabinets of curiosities and the Wunderkammer of Rudolf II in Prague

Collecting and displaying rare objects from around the world

How the rich and powerful used cabinets of curiosities for political purposes

by
Nolwenn Gouault (Europeana Foundation)

Cabinets of curiosities are rooms or galleries in which objects and works of art considered to be rare, innovative and singular are brought together.

Known as 'Cabinet de curiosités' in French, 'Kunst-' or 'Wunderkammer' in German, or 'studiolo' in Italian, they were a result of a taste for collecting objects during the Renaissance which was a continuation of the medieval encyclopaedism of the monasteries. It stemmed from a renewed interest among the elite in science and antiquities, fuelled by recent expeditions around the world.

There are many famous examples of cabinets of curiosities in Europe: those owned by the Este family in Ferrara, the Medici family in Florence, Francis I in Fontainebleau, Ferdinand II in Innsbruck, Rudolf II in Prague and Augustus the Strong in Dresden.

Scientists, scholars, nobles, kings, emperors, prince electors, explorers, ecclesiastics - anyone with financial means could create their own cabinet of curiosities.

This blog attempts to understand cabinets of curiosities and their political objectives, by looking at the example of Rudolph II in Prague.

What are cabinets of curiosities?

Cabinets of curiosities brought together a large number of old and contemporary paintings and sculptures, but they were also created around three other types of objects.

The particular feature of cabinets of curiosities lies in the creation of so-called ‘singular’ objects divided into three categories.

Naturalia are everything found in nature, objects related to fauna, flora and geology. Artificialia are the products of human creation or of nature modified by man.

Colour photograph of a cabinet of curiosities featuring objects such as painted portraits, ivory sculptures, a tower of metal jewellery and objects made from horns, stones, shells and coral.

Finally, scientifica are objects of a technical or scientific nature, considered to be ingenious creations that went beyond nature. These often included astronomical apparatus, clocks and mechanical devices such as automata.

Photograph of a 3D reproduction of a stella octangula (eight-pointed star).

These collections were organised around the esoteric principle of the unity of the universe. They were spaces where all the objects were mixed together and thus were philosophically inter-connected. The chaotic appearance allowed visitors to discover an internal logic to the collection.

Vetustissima - ancient and archaeological objects from the Middle Ages and Antiquity - also played an important role in Renaissance curiosity cabinets.

They provided a link with contemporary productions, highlighting the evolution of creative skills. The oldest items include archaeological objects and belongings that were believed to be illustrious historical figures (which, in reality, were often replicas).

Encyclopaedia page with colour reproductions of archaeological objects.

The many artefacts linked to previous kings and emperors show the extent to which these collections served to consolidate the power of their owners and to lay claim to a historical lineage.

The cabinet of curiosities and treasures of Rudolf II (1552 - 1612)

In 1583, Rudolf II, sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire and King of Bohemia, chose Prague as his place of residence and transformed it into a cultural and artistic capital.

Artists from all over Europe worked for the sovereign, including the German gem cutter and glass engraver Caspar Lehmann and the Italian families Miseroni and Castrucci, who specialised in stone carving. The Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo also created the famous Vertumnus painting as a singular portrait of Rudolf.

Portrait of Rudolf II composed entirely of plant elements such as fruit, vegetables, cereals and flowers.

The Czech, Flemish and Dutch silversmiths and sculptors Anton Schweinberger, Jan Vermeyen, Adrian de Vries and Paulus van Vianen were also among the sovereign's favourites.

Firstly, all these artists represented the king in various media.

Portrait engraved onto glass of Rudolf II in armour, holding a stick in his right hand and the pommel of a sword in his left. He is standing in front of a table on which are placed a sceptre and a crown. Above him, an eagle holds an arrow in its claws.
Colour photograph of a gold, stone and enamel cameo medallion depicting the profile portrait of Rudolf II.

Then they worked on the creation of the cabinet's collection by creating artificialia and naturalia. All these objects are characteristic of the Mannerism trend of the Rudolphian period.

Colour photograph of a glass vessel engraved with plant motifs and a female figure, with a golden handle, foot and lid set with red stones.
Golden bell made of metal alloy. It is engraved with animals and mythological figures.

Inventories of Rudolph's collection include objects made from elements found in nature, taxidermy items and even a unicorn horn!

Goldsmiths created pieces from these organic elements: rhinoceros horns, ivory, tortoise shells, seashells, coconuts, bezoar.

Stones were considered to be the ‘bones of the Earth’ and were thus linked philosophically to animal and human bones.

This is a colour photograph of a bezoar with a gold and enamel base and lid.
Colour photograph of a semi-precious stone dish with a gold and enamel base and two handles carved in the shape of snakes.

Around 1600, ivory became fashionable and sovereigns called on the services of turners and sculptors, as Rudolf II did with Hans Wecker.

Colour photograph of a set of small ivory objects.

Cabinets of curiosities were not just an accumulation of artistic treasures; they were also laboratories for experimentation. Astronomy, mathematics, chemistry and the natural sciences all made decisive, if sometimes mystical, advances.

At the court of Rudolf II, these teachings were led by astronomers such as Johannes Kepler, who attempted to apply these concepts of polyhedral harmony to the model of the solar system.

A black-and-white illustration of a number of interlocking 3D geometric shapes set in a half-globe on a complex-shaped base.

The German inventor Erasmus Habermel also devoted his career there to mathematics and astronomy, creating luxurious scientific instruments.

Colour photograph of a gilded copper alloy sundial.

Despite the scientific approach, cabinets of curiosities above all served to represent monarchies, testifying to their knowledge, prestige and sphere of influence.

A critical approach to the 'Age of Enlightenment'

In France, René Descartes and then the famous encyclopaedist Denis Diderot dismissed cabinets of curiosities as ‘fanciful’. Writers during the Enlightenment - first in France and then in Europe - criticised cabinets of curiosities for their heterogeneity and their attraction to the precious and the extraordinary.

The encyclopaedists of the period wanted to establish systematic rigour based on the creation of logical and coherent collections.

Page from an encyclopaedia with illustrations of weavers' tools. At the top of the image, an illustration of a workshop with two characters.

Collections began to become more specific, with works of fine art on one side and natural and technical sciences on the other, to form complete inventories and specialised studies.

Eurocentrism and colonialism

It is also difficult to disassociate the collections in the cabinets of curiosities from European colonial expeditions outside the continent.

Weapons, basketry, musical instruments and sculptures, among other things, were brought back from the kingdoms of the regions of today's Congo, Benin and Sierra Leone, as well as from the Americas and Asia. As for materials, while gold was often melted down during various financial crises, ivory remains one of the most obvious examples of these collections related to colonisation.

The association made between objects taken from colonised populations and the ‘curiosities’ in the cabinets shows the extent to which these collections were Euro-centric and based on colonial ideas.

Finally, in the cabinets of curiosities, we find examples of depictions of non-European men and women. They are often depicted as enslaved people, wearing gilded garments made of precious stones, in a form inherited from Roman antiquity. There is no realism and the representations are essentialised.

Black and white photograph of a muscular, almost naked black man wearing a crown, a pectoral and a skirt made of gold and precious stones. He is carrying a tray with a large and heavy stone.

Exoticism was not limited to the cabinets of curiosities, as it persisted over the following centuries.

19th-century explorers, artists and scientists - among them the Orientalists, the scientists of Napoleon's Egyptian campaigns or the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley - contributed to filling European museums and developing a dehumanised vision of non-European populations and cultures.

In addition, until the mid-20th century, the Universal Exhibitions also brought human beings from Africa, Asia and the Americas to Europe to be displayed at these events.

Black and white photograph of a life-size reproduction of a black man with a turban around his head and a long white tunic with long sleeves. He is wearing a necklace made up of a set of square pendants. In his right hand, he is holding an object consisting of a handle and long hair.
Black and white photograph of a group of bare-chested black adults and children surrounding a well-dressed white man. The background consists of palm trees and two thatched huts.

From cabinets to museums

Although the first museums were opened in Basel in 1661 and then in Oxford in 1681, with the Ashmolean Museum, it was during the French Revolution that the collections of the nobility and the clergy were requisitioned, divided up and then brought together by category in museums.

Colour illustration of a professor presenting a series of objects such as shells and horns. He is standing in front of an assembly of men listening to him. Behind him are paintings and engravings.

Natural history museums were created in Paris in 1793, Berlin in 1810 and London in 1881. The aim was no longer to seek out ‘extraordinary’ specimens and curiosities, but to launch an exhaustive inventory of the world's diversity in the name of universality.

Black and white photograph of museum display cases with stuffed and labelled animals inside.

The objects in the cabinets of curiosities now form part of our museum collections, but they should also be seen as the first idea of museums.

Black and white photograph of a museum room with columns and painted vaults, and display cases filled with objects from cabinets of curiosities.

In Vienna, it was not until 1875 that a reform decided the future of the imperial collections, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum opened its doors in 1891. Today, it boasts one of the largest collections of objects from cabinets such as the Kunst- und Wunderkammer of Ferdinand II of Tyrol and that of Rudolf II, which still has many objects despite the theft caused by the Thirty Years' War.