Art & Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance

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ART AND CURIOSITY CABINETS
OF THE LATE RENAISSANCE
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
Getty Research Institute
Los Angeles
Texts & Documents
ART AND CURIOSITY
CABINETS OF THE
LATE RENAISSANCE
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF COLLECTING
Julius von Schlosser
Edited by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann
Translated by Jonathan Blower
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GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS PROGRAM
Mary E. Miller, Director, Getty Research Institute
Gail Feigenbaum, Associate Director
© 2021 J. Paul Getty Trust
Published by the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
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Distributed in the United States and Canada by the University of Chicago Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schlosser, Julius von, 1866–1938, author. | Blower, Jonathan,
translator. | Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta, editor, writer of introduction.
| Getty Research Institute, issuing body.
Title: Art and curiosity cabinets of the late Renaissance / Julius von Schlosser.
Other titles: Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance. English
Description: Los Angeles : The Getty Research Institute, [2021] | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This volume is the
first English-language translation of Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der
Spätrenaissance, Austrian art historian and curator Julius von
Schlosser’s pioneering interpretation of late Renaissance cabinets of
wonder as precursors to the modern museum”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020016850 (print) | ISBN 9781606066652 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781606066799 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria, 1529–1595—Art
collections. | Schlosssammlung Ambras. | Cabinets of
curiosities—Europe. | Art museums—Europe. | Art—Collectors and
collecting—Europe. | Art—Private collections—Europe.
Classification: LCC N1010 .S3413 2021 (print) | LCC N1010 (ebook) | DDC
708.94—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016850
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016851
ISBN 978-1-60606-679-9
Front cover: Frontispiece from Benedetto Ceruti’s Museum Calceolarianum
(Verona: A. Tamum, 1622). See p. 174, fig. 89
Frontispiece: Frontispiece from Caspar Friedrich Einckel’s Museographia
(Leipzig and Breslau: M. Hubert, 1727). See p. 178, fig. 92
Back cover: Portrait of Julius Alwin Ritter von Schlosser. Institut für Kunstgeschichte der
Universität Wien, Archiv. Photo by Theo Bauer
Translations of phrases from the French on pages 89 and 96 are by Richard George Elliot.
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CONTENTS
Editor’s Acknowledgments
vi
Translator’s Acknowledgments
vii
Note on the Edition
viii
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance:
A Landmark Reconsidered
1
THOMAS DACOSTA KAUFMANN
ART AND CURIOSITY CABINETS OF THE LATE RENAISSANCE:
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF COLLECTING
Table of Contents
Preface [1907]
Introduction: Prehistory of the Kunst- und Wunderkammern
The Kunst- und Wunderkammern
Conclusion: The Subsequent Development of Collecting
Notes
Glossary of Selected Key Terms
Additional References
Biographical Notes on Contributors
Illustration Credits
Index
55
57
59
79
189
205
218
220
222
223
225
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vi
EDITOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Thomas Gaehtgens and Gail Feigenbaum for suggesting that I introduce and edit a translation of a key work by Julius von Schlosser. In doing so, I
am repaying a personal debt and resuming a connection I have had for most of
my academic career. In London, I studied with Ernst Gombrich and Otto Kurz,
both of whom had been students of Schlosser’s, written about him, and, in Kurz’s
case, edited his work. As noted in the introduction, I talked with Gombrich about
Schlosser and remained fascinated with his teacher’s work. As a graduate student
at Harvard University, I discovered Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance as well as the stunning early essay by Schlosser’s student Ernst Kris on
Joris Hoefnagel and “scientific naturalism” published in the Festschrift for Schlosser
(Weixlgärtner and Planiscig, 244–53). These and other works sparked my own interest in the Habsburgs and the Kunstkammer, which has continued since my dissertation on Maximilian II and Rudolf II. While I was working on my dissertation
in Vienna between 1974 and 1976, the curators of what was then the Sammlung für
Plastik und Kunstgewerbe (Collection of Sculpture and Decorative Arts) allowed
me to study the then unpublished inventory of Rudolf ’s collections in their offices,
one of which had been Schlosser’s. My experience of art in the Piaristenkirche, the
church attached to the school Schlosser attended, stimulated an interest in Franz
Anton Maulbertsch, as I remarked in a book I wrote on the artist thirty years later.
And in doing research for the present project, I experienced a shock of recognition
when I learned that Schlosser supplied a model not only for erudition but also for
the way I have taught my classes at Princeton University.
I wish to thank Paul Babinski, Annemarie Jordan-Gschwend, Jessica Keating,
Vera Keller, Paulus Rainer, Veronika Sandbichler, and Jeffrey Chipps Smith for conversations related to Schlosser and the Kunstkammer. I am grateful to my students
and audiences with whom I have discussed related matters over the years, and to the
Getty Research Institute and especially Doris Chon for producing this book.
— Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann
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vii
TRANSLATOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A few people kindly took the time to assist me with obscure, technical, or specialist terminology as I was preparing this translation: Louise Devoy from the Royal
Observatory in Greenwich, Peter Johnson of the Society of Ornamental Turners,
Marjorie Trusted at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and lastly Wolfgang Brückle
in Zurich, my first port of call for all things German. I’m very grateful for all their
help. I should also like to thank Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann and Doris Chon for
their meticulous work on the manuscript. Their knowledge, care, and expertise have
averted several shortcomings in the translation. Those that remain are my own.
— Jonathan Blower
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viii
NOTE ON THE EDITION
The aim of this book is to make Julius von Schlosser’s Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance available to English readers. Following the guidelines of the
Getty Research Institute’s Texts and Documents series, we have treated Schlosser’s
text as a historical document. Doing otherwise would amount to a herculean task.
It would be necessary to explicate the myriad unannotated references in Schlosser’s
text, which, as discussed in the introduction starting on page 1, is written in an early
twentieth-century Viennese-inflected German with allusions in Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and English. And it would also entail updating Schlosser’s voluminous
notes with citations to the immense literature on Kunstkammern and their contents
that has appeared since his book was published in 1908.
One example illustrates the amount of information required to adequately
address just a single passing reference. Schlosser writes:
There can be no better indication of the main source of pleasure at that time
than the travel journal of a Weimar delegation to Dresden in 1654, which is
printed in Johann Joachim Müller’s Entdecktes Staats-Cabinet (Jena 1771, eighth
opening, 220f.). It describes the Kunstkammer of the Saxon Elector at some
length, though these learned gentlemen seem to have had eyes and praise
for nothing but the curiosities, the customary muddle of natural and artistic
rarities (such confusion was particularly prominent here of all places), or, in
other words, the things they tended to call art in that milieu. For there is little
evidence of them having paid much attention to artistic things in the proper
sense; the name Cranach is barely even mentioned in passing, and then only as
a compatriot and with reference to two portraits.1
However, several recent publications of sources more directly related to the Dresden
collections and antedating 1654, as well as scholarship on them, cast into doubt the
validity of the source Schlosser used and the opinion he bases on it.2
We have accordingly left both Schlosser’s endnotes intact (including his use of
f. and ff. following page numbers to indicate “and the following page(s),” and references in the text unamended, using the introduction to discuss his interpretations
and their place in cultural history and the historiography of art. To avoid disrupting
the original sequence of the endnotes, a list of Additional References in the backmatter provides complete citations for references to published volumes that are not
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NOTE ON THE EDITION
detailed in Schlosser’s endnotes or in the main text. These references range from
Plato, Epicurus, and various works by Goethe to the so-called Wiener Musterbuch
of the fifteenth century and scientific treatises of the eighteenth century written by
Francesco Algarotti. We have verified all of Schlosser’s citations and references, with
one exception.3
The translation is based on the first German edition, published by Klinkhardt
and Biermann in Leipzig in 1908. Klinkhardt and Biermann published a revised and
expanded edition in Braunschweig in 1978, but its editors state that the manuscript
on which it is based did not reach them directly and was found in an antiquarian
bookshop in Vienna.4 Schlosser signed his introduction to this manuscript 1923,
but as the editors of the 1978 edition presume, he may have intended to alter his
text before his death in 1938. Their edition greatly transforms the original publication of 1908. The discussion of specific Kunstkammern has been substantially
enlarged. Additions include pages on the collections in Berlin and Dresden; completely new sections on those in Salzburg, Kremsmünster, Hessen-Kassel, Braunschweig, Bevern-Wolfenbüttel, and Salzdahlum; and an entire second section on
the Munich Kunstkammer. The second edition contains much that Schlosser did
not know of or approve: the editors state that Ulla Krempel added the new section on the Munich Kunstkammer, and that they have completely substituted alternate photographs for those appearing in the original edition. This admission does
not, however, acknowledge their addition of fifty-eight new images, among them
illustrations of material that Schlosser could not have seen in his lifetime.5 There is
no way of checking what Schlosser did write, because the editors’ assumption that
the text disappeared after Schlosser failed to see the second edition into print has
proved true: despite efforts to locate the manuscript for it in Vienna, for which we
thank Professor Artur Rosenauer, it has not been recovered. It moreover makes no
sense to retain the few additions to the notes in the 1978 edition, because they have
been only slightly updated from the original edition, and obviously do not reflect
the vast literature published since 1978. Finally, the second edition contains misleading errors that were not present in the original edition; for example, the substitution
of Δάθε βιώσας, which does not make sense, for Λάθε βιώσας.6
The translation of the title of the book requires further comment. The more
familiar English title Art and Curiosity Cabinets was chosen, because it was thought
to be more easily discoverable to researchers and accessible to the broadest possible
audience. This particular translation appears only in the title. Otherwise, Kunst- und
Wunderkammern and its variants have been retained. The introduction explains
why: Schlosser’s deployment of distinctive terms is an important theme of his book,
and his choice of the wording of the title itself merits explanation. These German
terms for collections vary widely in their usage and semantic valence and lack adequate equivalents in English (not to mention other languages). Antoine Schnapper’s claim that “curiosity cabinets” encompasses both components of Schlosser’s
title (and his consequent use of the phrase in the title of his book on collections in
seventeenth-century France) is not defensible, for reasons suggested here and more
fully in the introduction.7
ix
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x
NOTE ON THE EDITION
Schlosser employs a wide range of German compound constructions as they are
found both in original documents and in his own descriptions of collections. They
include root nouns such as Kammer (plural Kammern), Kabinett (plural Kabinette),
Schrank (plural Schränke), and the diminutive Schränkchen. They are preceded
by nouns describing the contents of these cabinets and chambers as architectural
spaces or pieces of furniture. These include Kunst (meaning more than art—artifice,
skill, as in the Greek τέχνη, signified by the use of technotameion or technicotheca
for Kunstkammer 8 in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries); Wunder(wonder, marvel, exotic); Raritäten- (rarity, exotic); Kuriositäten- (curiosity); Naturalien- (naturalia); and Antiken- (antiquities). Some of these terms are discussed
at further length in the introduction. German orthography, including the usage of
hyphens (for example, Raritäten-Kabinett vs. Raritätenkabinett), varied widely and
did not become standardized in the German-speaking world until the unification
of Germany in 1871.
German-language terms for what Schlosser designated Kunst- und Wunderkammern constitute a key component of the Glossary of Selected Key Terms contained
in this volume. The Glossary provides another way for the editor to annotate a
limited selection of key terms and concepts that may be unfamiliar to an Englishlanguage reader without disrupting the sequence of Schlosser’s endnotes as they
appeared in the original edition. Terms defined in the Glossary are marked with an
asterisk [*] when they first appear in the text.
Finally, some words on the global changes that follow house style. First names
have been added to proper names at first instance. Buildings, institutions, and
place-names have generally been left in their local language. In most cases, names
have been given in the vernacular rather than in Latin, which Schlosser occasionally used. Where available, references to English translations of works in other
languages cited by Schlosser have been provided in brackets in the endnotes. Following the style of Schlosser’s original edition, illustration captions remain brief
and descriptive, though we have added makers’ names and dates, updated names of
institutions, and also translated legible inscriptions within the illustrations where
relevant. Figure callouts in this volume appear in the same locations they did in the
original edition, and newer photography has been used where available. We have
reproduced Schlosser’s Genealogy of Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol on pages 94–95
as it appeared in his original publication, which notably excluded several key members of Ferdinand II’s family. We have also silently corrected a number of errors discovered in the 1908 edition to include page and volume references, birth and death
dates, names, the misidentification of a Mexica feather headdress as a cloak in figure
45 (which was reproduced upside down in the original edition as a result), and the
title of Arcimboldo’s painting in figure 70.
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann
Princeton, March 2020
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NOTE ON THE EDITION
Notes
This volume, 147.
Gabriel Kaltemarckt’s suggestion of how to form (or re-form) the Kunstkammer in Dresden already indicates interest in “artistic things”; see Dirk Syndram, “Die Anfänge der
Dresdener Kunstkammer,” in Dirk Syndram, Martina Minning, and Karina Lau, eds., Die
kurfürstliche-sächsische Kunstkammer in Dresden: Geschichte einer Sammlung (Dresden:
Sandstein, 2012), 333–34. Kaltemarckt’s considerations are published with commentary
by Matthias Dämmig, “Gabriel Kaltemarkt’s ‘Bedenken, wie eine kunst-cammer aufzu
richten seyn mochte’ von 1587 mit einer Einleitung,” in Die kurfürstliche-sächsische
Kunstkammer in Dresden: Geschichte einer Sammlung, 46–62. This text is available in
English translation in Barbara Gutfleisch and Joachim Menzhausen, “‘How a Kunstkammer Should be Formed:’ Gabriel Kaltemarckt’s Advice to Christian I of Saxony on the
Formation of an Art Collection, 1587,” in Journal of the History of Collections 1, no. 1 (1989):
3–32. Aesthetic considerations seem soon thereafter applied to the acquisitions of works of
art: see Ulrike Weinhold, “Die Habsburger und die frühe Dresdner Kunstkammer,” in Die
kurfürstliche-sächsische Kunstkammer in Dresden: Geschichte einer Sammlung, 67. Paintings
by Lucas Cranach were already in abundance in the Saxon collections as the result of the
inheritance of Lucas Cranach the Younger in 1588, and more were added in subsequent
years; they were much in evidence in the 1640 inventory of the Dresden collections, and
the Cranach holdings have been regarded as representing an aesthetic continuity. See Barbara Marx, “Auf dem Weg zur frühbarocken Kunstkammer. Eine Annäherung/Die Kunstkammer vor der Kunstkammer,” in Marx and Peter Plassmeyer, ed., Sehen und Staunen:
Die Dresdner Kunstkammer von 1640 (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2014), 64–65.
The relevant inventories have been published by Dirk Syndram, Martina Minning,
and Jochen Vötsch, eds., Die kurfürstliche-sächsische Kunstkammer in Dresden. Das
Inventar von 1587 (Dresden: Sandstein, 2010); Dirk Syndram, Martina Minning, and
Jochen Vötsch, eds., Die kurfürstliche-sächsische Kunstkammer in Dresden. Das Inventar
von 1619 (Dresden: Sandstein, 2010); Dirk Syndram, Martina Minning, and Jochen
Vötsch, eds., Die kurfürstliche-sächsische Kunstkammer in Dresden. Das Inventar von
1640 (Dresden: Sandstein, 2010).
3. We have not been able find the source of the “short inventory” of Archduke Ferdinand’s
armory that Schlosser cites on page 101 as “(Innsbruck: Joh. Bauer, 1593).”
4. Julius Ritter von Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance: Ein
Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sammelwesens, 2nd ed. (Braunschweig: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1978), vii.
5. See, for example, a reconstruction of 1960 (fig. 91) and an installation dating to the 1970s
(fig. 80) in Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 2nd ed.
6. The erroneous Greek phrase appears in Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern
der Spätrenaissance, 2nd ed., 7; the original phrase appears in Julius von Schlosser, Die
Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sammelwesens (Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1908), 6.
7. See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, “Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance:
A Landmark Reconsidered,” this volume, 32–33.
8. See, for example, Dirk Syndram, “Die Anfänge der Dresdener Kunstkammer,” 34; Vera
Keller, Knowledge and the Public Interest (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015),
122n102. The term technicotheca is also discussed in Jakob Bornitz, Tracatus Politicus De
Rerum Sufficientia (Frankurt: Tampach, 1625), 229. See further “Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance: A Landmark Reconsidered,” this volume, 48n156.
1.
2.
xi
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1
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann
DIE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
DER SPÄTRENAISSANCE:
A LANDMARK RECONSIDERED
Julius von Schlosser’s Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance broke
ground in several fields when it was published in 1908. It was a landmark in the
study of what are often referred to in English as the applied or decorative arts, and
it was the eleventh monograph in a series devoted to what are known in German
as Kunstgewerbe. The series was edited by Jean-Louis Sponsel (1858–1930), a professor at the Technische Hochschule (now the Technische Universität) in Dresden.
Sponsel later became director and historian of the Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault),
Dresden’s treasury of objects of this kind.1 Schlosser (1866–1938) dealt with Kunstgewerbe as part of the princely collections in central Europe that contained such
artifacts as goldsmithery, ivories, clocks, and cut-stone vessels along with jewels,
sculpture, paintings, and books; animal skins, shells, and other natural specimens;
and scientific instruments, items of popular culture, objects from places far away
from Europe, and much more. He situated Kunst- und Wunderkammern within
a more general history of collecting. More recently, the late sixteenth- and early
seventeenth-century phenomena that Schlosser discussed have had an impact on
special exhibitions; the display of objects in American, British, and continental collections; and works by contemporary artists.2
Schlosser’s title employed the notion of Spätrenaissance (late Renaissance). In
doing so, Schlosser also contributed to a discussion of how to categorize European
art and culture of the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, while resonating with the fascination with “late styles” that was prevalent circa 1900.3 His treatment of Kunst- und Wunderkammern as late Renaissance phenomena represents
a distinctive characterization of a period that called to mind other styles, such as
the baroque and mannerism.4 But his book went far beyond one historical period.
It began with observations about animals, children, and “primitive” peoples and
ended with reflections on contemporary (early twentieth-century) culture. Schlosser’s subtitle, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sammelwesens (A Contribution to the
History of Collecting), and the appearance of the word Sammelwesens (collecting) in
his first sentence indicate that he aimed at an understanding of a broader history of
the Wesen (essence) of collecting.
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance ranges across many disciplines. Starting with a brief discussion of the historiography of art, on which
Schlosser was soon to compile a fundamental handbook, Die Kunstliteratur, ein
Handbuch zur Quellenkunde der neueren Kunstgeschichte (1924), it deploys insights
Fig. 1.
Photograph of Julius von
Schlosser, March 1927.
Photo courtesy
Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek,
Bildarchiv und
Grafiksammlung.
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2
KAUFMANN
gained from the then emerging disciplines of psychology and anthropology in the
same initial passage.5 By pointing to the way in which earlier collections led to modern museums, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance helped initiate
the discussion of what was to become museology. In dealing with the diverse contents of the Kunstkammer, which surpassed a definition of Kunst qua art, Schlosser
also aided the expansion of art history into what has become material culture studies.6 By considering objects in relation to other intellectual and cultural currents of
their time, Schlosser likewise suggested a more comprehensive approach related to
cultural history (explicitly mentioned along with psychology in the first sentence
of the book), albeit of a different kind than that advocated by Jacob Burckhardt or
the Kulturwissenschaft (cultural studies) of his contemporary Aby Warburg, with
whom there existed a mutually recognized affinity.7 The attention Schlosser paid
to artifacts made by peoples outside Europe, whose significance and quality he
recognized, in turn makes Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance a
harbinger of world history and art history.8 The whole endeavor is an exemplar of
interdisciplinarity.
Otto Kurz said with perhaps only some exaggeration that Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance is about thousands of arguments, many more than
its title might imply.9 The present essay seeks primarily to relate some salient features of the book to Schlosser’s scholarship and teaching, and to discuss the volume’s
subsequent impact. Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance characteristically conjoined Schlosser’s erudition with his philological and historiographic
interests and his acute attention to individual artifacts. After discussing how these
varied features stemmed from his professional formation and intellectual propensities and how they in turn shaped the book, this introduction addresses the reception
of Schlosser’s treatise on Kunstkammern and its relevance today.
The Least Known of the Prominent Art Historians of His Day?
Though slightly younger than Alois Riegl (1858–1905), Julius von Schlosser (fig. 1)
was born the same year as Aby Warburg (1866–1929) and within a few years of the
art historians Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945), Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941), and
Max Friedländer (1867–1958); he was slightly older than Max Dvořák (1874–1921).
Writings by these and many other prominent art historians became available in
English during their lifetimes or soon after, and many more have been subsequently
translated into other languages. While French, Italian, and Spanish translations of
several of Schlosser’s works have been published, including Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance,10 only a few of Schlosser’s copious writings (or
excerpts thereof) have been translated into English;11 this is the first English translation of any book by him.
This lacuna contrasts with continuing interest in contemporaries of Schlosser
such as Warburg, the study of whom has not abated since the 1980s.12 Wölfflin has
long enjoyed and has recently regained consideration in many countries around
the world.13 Several of Schlosser’s Viennese peers, including his antagonist Josef
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A LANDMARK RECONSIDERED
Strzygowski as well as many of Schlosser’s students and colleagues, have also been
researched intensively.14 While many European scholars have written on Schlosser,15
he has not gained much attention in English.16 An anthology of writings of the
Vienna School of art history in English does not include him.17 The most recent
comprehensive study of the Vienna School (in English) barely mentions him: while
it acknowledges Schlosser’s “theoretical concerns” and notes that his “critical editions of texts were acknowledged classics,” it calls him a “marginal” figure and avers
that Strzygowski and Dvořák were more influential.18 Schlosser has been regarded
as the least known of the prominent art historians of his day, an “outsider” whose
work is more often cited than read, a point to which we will return.19
Schlosser’s importance as a museum curator, his fundamental contributions
to scholarship, and his influence as an educator would seem to challenge reasons
for his relative neglect. Schlosser wrote Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance while he was employed in the most important art museum in Vienna
and teaching at the university there. From the early 1890s until 1922, Schlosser
worked in Vienna’s art museums. This is more than a decade longer than did Alois
Riegl, yet the latter is more firmly associated with museums in anglophone scholarship. In 1922, Schlosser gave up his regular position as director of the imperial sculpture and arts and crafts collections to assume a professorial chair in art history at the
Universität Wien. He began teaching there in 1893 and continued until 1936, more
than four times as long as did Riegl. Nevertheless, Riegl has become a paradigmatic
figure of the Vienna School of art history, even though Schlosser did much to define
the school in a chronicle he first published in 1934.20
Schlosser’s accomplishments display the major aspects of his activities. He had
a large impact on the organization, display, and study of the collections in Vienna.
His scholarly production was extensive, important, and in many respects innovative. He had numerous outstanding students, among them famous scholars who
enjoyed major careers after they emigrated from Austria in the 1930s, along with
some who remained there. He was doctoral adviser to Ernst Gombrich, Ernst Kris,
Otto Kurz, Otto Pächt, Fritz Saxl, and Charles de Tolnay, as well as one of the advisers to Hans Sedlmayr, who, like Pächt (after returning to Austria following World
War II), succeeded him as professor in Vienna. Several of these men described the
positive impact of Schlosser’s teaching.21
Schlosser’s reception contrasts, however, with that of many other art historians
associated with the Vienna School who began to garner attention in the United
States and the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s, when the “new art history”
started questioning the methods and historiography of the “traditional” discipline.22
This trend responded to what a 2009 essay singled out as the call by one prominent art historian who had earlier criticized the lack of self-reflection in anglophone
art history and proposed rethinking the premises of the discipline.23 Many art historians took up questions of method and theory, leading to engagement with the
Vienna School.24 As the vogue for theory surged, Schlosser gained attention. At a
special session of the Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte (International
Congress for Art History) held in Vienna in 1983 and devoted to the Vienna School,
3
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KAUFMANN
Michael Podro explicitly argued that Schlosser was “still a pertinent theorist.”25
But Schlosser’s theory did not correspond to Podro’s expressed view of the historiography of art history, nor to what in the 1980s was becoming fashionable as
the “new art history.” In a book he published the year before he delivered his lecture on Schlosser, Podro explicitly distinguished Schlosser’s ideas from the tradition of “critical historians of art,” including Riegl, Warburg, and Wölfflin. He held
that Schlosser’s view of a discontinuous history of artists who were independent of
one another contradicted the underlying belief of Vienna School art historians that
the history of art reveals a continuous history of form or style.26 Schlosser instead
adhered to the opinion, ascribed to disciples of the Italian philosopher and writer
Benedetto Croce, who had a lasting impact on his thought, that there is no such history of art, only artists creating.27 Because Schlosser supposedly lacked a coherent
model or theory for the history of art, Podro did not grant him extended discussion in his book. In his published lecture, Podro emphasized instead that Schlosser
favored “historical particulars” and “not broad abstractions.”28
While Schlosser’s approach and Crocean outlook may have been consonant with
features of “normative” art history as it was practiced through the 1970s, they ran
counter to the main thrust of much of the “new art history.”29 This trend responded
to a critique that specifically decried the deficits of empiricism and positivism.30
It may seem that this movement has led to a situation in which the paramount
question confronting art historians appears to be what theory or method should
be applied to the material at hand rather than how to interpret it. Be that as it may,
the “new art history” and what has followed from it certainly did not correspond
to Schlosser’s approach, nor did it emulate Riegl in this respect, even while interest
in the latter’s work, especially in his theories, was revived. Like those of Schlosser,
Riegl’s theories developed out of his empirical tasks in the museum, and his subsequent writings opened up new fields for art historical study.31
This may suggest another reason why there has not hitherto been much importance granted to Schlosser by the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century revival
of interest in art historiography. Beyond a lack of translations, which this book hopes
in part to alleviate, Schlosser’s character and approach do not seem to synchronize
with some of the most important intellectual currents in the humanities of recent
decades. This discrepancy may be related to some of Schlosser’s idiosyncrasies, some
of which Kurz mentions in his insightful essay on his revered teacher.32 Both Kurz
and Warburg describe Schlosser as someone who seemed to have come out of the
eighteenth century.33 Several scholars (including Schlosser himself) characterize him
as unzeitgemäss (out of synch with his own time).34 Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern
der Spätrenaissance has also recently been described as strangely lacking in currency
with the art of its day.35 Patricia Falguières proffers Schlosser’s apparent anachronism
as one explanation for why he might not have gained readers.36
The concept of historical anachronism was reevaluated during the same period
that Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance was amassing a burgeoning interest, and this has in turn had an effect on Schlosser’s reception. Indeed, one
of the proponents of a renewed appreciation of the so-called anachronic has been
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Christopher S. Wood, one of the few anglophone scholars to study Schlosser. While
Wood has referred to Schlosser’s “methodological austerity and respect for fact,”
Schlosser and his work do not seem to have attracted him.37
Before one may more fully consider the question of the reception of Schlosser’s
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance and its present relevance,
however, it is necessary to relate the book to the broader character of his scholarship and his approach. This entails situating Schlosser’s education, interests, and
activities in the context of the culture in which he lived at the turn of the twentieth
century and to relate them to the contents and thrust of the book.
Schlosser’s Vienna
Unlike several other major scholars associated with Vienna (for example, Sedlmayr,
Strzygowski, and Dvořák), Julius Alwin von Schlosser studied, worked, and died in
the city that was his birthplace. Although Schlosser said that he never felt attached
to Vienna as more than the location where he worked,38 he nevertheless seems in
many respects to have been formed by the milieu and institutions in which he grew
to maturity as a scholar and curator. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
Vienna evokes a vision of vibrant cultural creativity exemplified by such famous
thinkers, writers, musicians, artists, and architects as Sigmund Freud, Hugo van
Hofmannsthal, Gustav Klimt, Adolf Loos, Gustav Mahler, Robert Musil, Egon
Schiele, Richard Strauss, and Otto Wagner, just to mention some better-known figures. Regardless of how appropriate these comparisons may seem,39 Vienna was
also one of the crucibles in which art history was forged as a modern discipline, as
Schlosser himself described.40
When Schlosser was born in Vienna in 1866, the Danubian metropolis was the
primary residence of the emperor and consequently the effective capital of the Austrian Empire (named after the dynasty of the Habsburgs, who were its rulers, and
after their most important hereditary lands).41 Franz Josef (1848–1916) reigned for
the first fifty of Schlosser’s seventy-two years. Although after the revolutions of 1848
Franz Josef appeared to have bowed to the times and turned the imperial government into a constitutional monarchy, his administration often functioned as such in
name only; it remained autocratic to its core. For example, in 1866 the emperor suspended the Imperial Council (Reichsrat) and ruled by decree, and he did so again
on several later occasions when decisions were to be made of which he did not
approve, or when he was displeased.
The centripetal significance of the emperor took physical shape during the
decades of Schlosser’s youth, as buildings went up on the new Ringstrasse,42 which
had been planned as a broad circular avenue for traffic in the space opened by the
demolition of Vienna’s city walls after the revolutions of 1848 (fig. 2). The Ringstrasse demonstrated visually and materially the central importance of the imperial court. The Neue Burg (new wing of the imperial palace) and the Kaiserforum
(now Maria-Theresien-Platz) — the location of the new museums for the imperial
collections designed in 1867, when Schlosser was one year old — were planned for
5
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6
KAUFMANN
Fig. 2.
Aerial view of
Kunsthistorisches
Museum and Hofburg on
the Ring.
Framepool / Vienna Aerial.
a location at the midpoint of the Ring on the side opposite the Danube Canal. This
placement and the large size of the buildings bodied forth the importance of the
imperial house and its possessions.
A hierarchical structure with the emperor at the top determined many aspects
of social relations in the Habsburg territories. Despite vestiges of modernity, Austrian society remained semifeudal in character, dominated by aristocrats. A familiar
quip avers that (social) life in Austria-Hungary began only with Herr Baron (a lower
title but one that Schlosser, though born with the aristocratic prefix “von” and subsequently ennobled, never obtained).
In this and other regards, Austria-Hungary was truly the successor state of the
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation that Emperor Francis II dissolved in
1806, continuing to rule as Francis I of the Austrian Empire established in 1804
out of the lands over which the Habsburg dynasty had dominion.43 But despite the
German epithet, these lands constituted a Vielvölkerreich, a realm of many different ethnic groups (German speakers, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, Magyars,
Romanians, Ukrainians, Poles, Italians, and so on). By 1910, the imperial capital of
Vienna had become a polyglot, multiethnic, international city that was the fourth
largest in Europe, with a population larger than that of the present-day metropolis.
Among those drawn to Vienna were Schlosser’s parents, Wilhelm Valentin von
Schlosser (1820–70) and Sophie Maria Eiberger (1830–1916).44 Schlosser’s father was
a military administrator of Hessian (German) background whose predecessors had
worked in different parts of east central Europe, while his mother had Bolognese
roots; Schlosser added her older family name, Magnino, to his father’s in later Italian translations of his works. It is possible that Schlosser heard Italian spoken early
in his life: in any case, he reportedly spoke Italian fluently. He frequently traveled to
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Italy, chose to write on many Italian topics, and was an Italophile.45 During almost
half his lifetime, from 1882 until 1915, the Kingdom of Italy was formally allied with
Austria-Hungary, despite earlier conflicts between Italians and the Habsburgs.
Schlosser remained enamored of Italy even after the entrance of Italy into the First
World War against Austria-Hungary; the split and combat between these polities
caused him much inner unrest, as it did Warburg.
Historians have presented Viennese culture circa 1900 as the expression of a
society riven by political and social disintegration. On the one hand, Vienna was
one of the cradles of modernist culture. But while newer ideas were visualized, old
traditions were still vigorously conserved and defended, and reactionary views of
society and culture were articulated anew. A classic study of fin de siècle Vienna
has suggested how such seemingly contradictory political and social views could
have arisen simultaneously; newer historians have found similar dichotomies persisting into the later twentieth century in Austria.46 While Schlosser’s mixed cultural
background might be regarded as that of a typical inhabitant of Austria-Hungary,
centrifugal forces were thus at work that ultimately led to the disintegration of the
Habsburgs’ diverse empire, and they resonate in his own work.
In contrast with the dual monarchy (Austrian Empire and Hungarian Kingdom)
in which the Habsburgs ruled over many nations, the Kingdom of Italy, for instance,
originated as one of several new nation-states founded during the nineteenth century. Italy, Germany, and other countries gave expression to various sorts of nationalistic strivings throughout Europe. But in Austria-Hungary, the continuation of
Habsburg (and Hungarian) rule over large minorities conflicted with the nationalist political aspirations of many peoples who demanded more rights and ultimately
independence. The official use of German for administration and politics and the
related hegemony of German speakers in the Austrian Empire were problematic for
many groups who demanded recognition of their own languages and cultures. The
weight given to the German language and the question of ethnicity posed difficulties for German speakers in many lands, including Schlosser. The political stance of
German speakers was also threatened when the Austrian Empire fragmented into
several states, among them a diminished Republic of Austria. While seemingly cosmopolitan, Schlosser seems to have doubted the validity of Austria, which may have
seemed a losing proposition without Germany. It is an open question why, despite his
cosmopolitanism, Schlosser, like many other Austrians, at the end of his life joined
the party (the Nazis) that promised a Third Reich in a new greater Germany, a Grossdeutsches Reich, and annexed Austria in 1938: this is a point to which we will return.47
The first German Reich was the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation,
which had included both what was to become the second German Reich in Germany proper and the German-speaking regions of the Austrian Empire that was
established in 1804. Until 1866, Austria exercised hegemony within the German
Confederation founded at the Conference of Vienna in 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, to replace the Holy Roman Empire. But in 1866, Schlosser’s birth year,
the situation changed radically. The Prussians defeated the Austrians and several
other German states in the Seven Weeks’ War. The Prussians then excluded Austria
7
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KAUFMANN
from Germany, putting an end to a possible solution in the idea of a “Great Germany” (Grossdeutschland) that would include Austria within the vision of a larger
German nation or state. Prussia laid the grounds for an exclusively national German Empire: after a victorious war with France, the Prussian king was proclaimed
emperor of the German Reich that was unified in 1871. In 1866, Austria lost the
Veneto as well, providing a further impetus to concentrate its efforts on a central
Europe that looked to the east and southeast and was separated from Germany.48
Nationalism comparable to that stoked in Germany and Italy soon flared up again
in the Habsburg lands. In 1867, a compromise (Ausgleich) granted Hungary equal status with the Austrian Empire, establishing the empire-kingdom of Austria-Hungary,
the “dual monarchy.”49 But this also meant that a minority of Magyar speakers was
dominant over many other ethnic groups in its own kingdom, as was a Germanspeaking minority in the lands that remained Austrian. The compromise proved
inherently unstable. The dual monarchy came to an end at the conclusion of the First
World War in 1918, when Austria-Hungary dissolved into independent nation-states
whose existence was confirmed by the Treaties of Saint-Germain and Trianon.
Consideration of the circumstances that led to the creation, conflicts, and
collapse of Austria-Hungary is important for understanding the world in which
Schlosser grew up and reached maturity, as well as the genesis of his subsequent
attitudes. Until 1918, Schlosser was studying and working in a society in which older
institutions and relations continued to thrive even while newer social and economic
forces were being formed that undermined them. His own education and occupation led to his association with older institutions and norms, which were hardly in
tune with the constitutional, popular, or democratic governments often associated
with modernity. Yet the intellectual attitudes expressed in Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance reveal sympathy with modern rationalism and
scientific attitudes. In the end, both the book and Schlosser’s politics may be traced
to the unique situation in which they were created. At the time he was writing,
Schlosser was effectively working for the Habsburg court. The book suggests that
he identified with the Habsburgs and their influential legacy, and this identification
was crucial both for his early political stance and for his cultural and political conservatism after the fall of the Habsburgs.
Schlosser’s Education and Early Career in Imperial Vienna
Schlosser grew up living with his family in the Florianigasse in Vienna’s Josefstadt,
the city’s eighth district just outside the Ringstrasse, and he attended the Piarist
gymnasium (secondary school) nearby. Founded in 1701, the school carried on
traditions of humanist education in the Greek and Latin classics that the Piarists
had revived as part of their involvement with the eighteenth-century reform of
education, sometimes characterized as an aspect of the Catholic Enlightenment.50
Schlosser received a thorough grounding in ancient languages and literature, and
knowledge of classical languages, especially Latin, remained for him an unspoken
assumption of what was necessary for the study of art history.51
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Schlosser’s conviction that knowledge of Latin was fundamental for scholarship had deep roots. Latin had originally gained currency as the language of the
Romans, whose empire bordered the Danube. (Vienna was Roman Vindobona,
where Emperor Marcus Aurelius had died.) Knowledge of Latin remained important in both learned and other circles for many centuries in Austria and elsewhere.
Revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and made a basis for humanist education in both Catholic and Protestant confessions, Latin retained its status as the
language of scholarship and education for centuries: it was not until the 1690s that
classes were taught in German in central Europe. Latin remained a language for
scholarly publication until recently: this writer recalls that in the mid-1970s, the
Universität Wien still accepted dissertations in Greek or Latin as well as in German, but not in English. Reading knowledge of Latin remains recommended and
perhaps required by some professors for certain studies of art history in Vienna. In
a few areas of Austria-Hungary, Latin was spoken well into the nineteenth century
and beyond. (This author had to speak Latin when, in 1975, he tried to visit the
treasury of Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, a city that was ruled by Austria from 1795
until 1918.) Elsewhere, it was not only Roman Catholic clergymen who continued to
use Latin as a spoken language. As a neutral, supranational, and imperial language,
Latin remained the official language of the Hungarian Diet (Parliament) until the
1840s, when Hungarian nationalism led to its replacement by Magyar. Many factors
thus lie behind Schlosser’s advocacy of the importance of classical languages, which
are also evident in his frequent allusions and his high valuation of Greek culture in
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance.
Classical literature formed only one part of Schlosser’s literary culture, and the
same may be said for many other educated Viennese of his generation. Schlosser
read widely in Italian, French, and German literature, as frequent quotations and
citations in Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance also demonstrate.
He tried his own hand at writing belles lettres. His first publications, which appeared
in 1887, were books of stories and poems.52
The gymnasium where Schlosser was educated was a significant site for other
aspects of Viennese cultural creation. The Piarist church attached to Schlosser’s
school was where Anton Bruckner played organ for his trial examination, and
where Joseph Haydn’s Stabat Mater was first sung. These details provide a reminder
that Vienna’s musical heritage is interwoven with many other aspects of its cultural
life. Outstanding composers such as Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, and Arnold
Schoenberg were Schlosser’s contemporaries. Schlosser was himself friendly with
musicians and personally participated in musical groups. Like other Viennese
(including his pupil and biographer Gombrich), he played cello in amateur quartets;
Schlosser’s second wife was a professional violinist (much as Gombrich’s mother
and wife were pianists). Schlosser’s interest in music left an impact on his work in
museums and on his scholarship. Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance reveals this interest when Schlosser singles out the place of musical instruments in the collections he describes. A few years after the publication of this book,
in 1914, Schlosser brought together the Habsburg collections of historical musical
9
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KAUFMANN
instruments that had previously been scattered and combined them into one unified assemblage. He subsequently established a separate collection specifically designated for musical instruments and wrote the first inventory of this collection as
well as other guides to it.53 Musical comparisons were probably on his mind when
he called a collection of his own essays (including one on the philosophy of art collecting) Präludien (Preludes), evidently emulating Frédéric Chopin.54 Other such
references appear in his Kunstkammer book.
The ceiling of the Piarist church of the school Schlosser attended features a painting by Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724–96). Although Schlosser did not himself
write about them, Maulbertsch’s frescoes in the Piarist church had a decisive effect
on his younger contemporary, the artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980).55 Schlosser
must have recognized as well that Maulbertsch’s work was noteworthy, because in
1931 he accepted the first book-length study of the artist as a dissertation.56 In any
case, from circa 1910 Austrian “baroque” ceiling painting certainly engaged scholars
in Vienna like Dvořák and Hans Tietze, both of whose work Schlosser knew well.57
Schlosser taught regularly about Austrian monuments in Übungen (practical exercises) that doubtless involved works of the eighteenth century.58
Although what has become the Kunsthistorisches Museum (fig. 3) was Schlosser’s main workplace and is only a fifteen-minute walk from his family’s residence, the
museum was not opened until 1891. It is impossible to say if Schlosser was exposed
to art early, as was Gombrich,59 or what other works of art or collections Schlosser
might have seen while he was still in school.
From his home on Florianigasse, Schlosser was also only a few minutes’ walk
from the central building of the Universität Wien. From 1884 to 1887, he attended
classes there in classical philology. His courses involved him deeply in the study of
Greek and Latin. Schlosser began training in the critical examination of texts and
the determination of their authenticity, origins, and transmission.
During the same years, Schlosser began to study philosophy. His early interest
in philosophy was long-standing; he was concerned with philosophical questions,
particularly those that touched on art, for much of his life. Schlosser’s discussion of
the relation of linguistic expression to artistic originality and his advocacy of the
opinions of Croce evince this interest, but Schlosser was interested in the philosophy of art many years before he heard of Croce or became his friend. In 1885, before
he was twenty years old (and hence before he wrote a dissertation on art history),
Schlosser penned a philosophical tract on art titled “Grundzüge eines kunstphilosophischen Systems auf idealistischer Grundlage (Outline of a system for a philosophy of art on idealistic foundations)” that has only recently been rediscovered. This
early treatise is concerned with the philosophy of art and questions of the beautiful in relation to form. Though it has yet to be published or explicated, the young
Schlosser’s use of notions such as “idealistic” and “system” in the title already hint
at a probable post- and neo-Kantian approach, which were common property at the
time for thinkers who had read Immanuel Kant and his followers.60
But Schlosser followed his philological inclinations down another career path.
He began to study archaeology and art history. He took classes in Greco-Roman
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archaeology with Otto Benndorf (1838–1907), one of the excavators of the important
site of Ephesus in Anatolia. Although not a subject on which Schlosser himself published directly, archaeology remained an important subject to him. In the curriculum
vitae he submitted in 1914 to the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Schlosser included among his distinctions membership
in the Österreichisches Archäeologisches Institut (Austrian Archaeological Institute), an association that had been founded in 1898 in part due to enthusiastic public
response to discoveries at Ephesus.61 Archaeological method would have reinforced
his concern with the observation, description, and analysis of discrete artifacts.
Schlosser also became one of the first students of another of the founders of the
Vienna School of art history, Franz Wickhoff (1853–1909). Wickhoff argued for rigor
and against the more subjective and literary approaches often present in writings on
art in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Considering that modern
academic art history was then still in its formative stages, his point of view may
be regarded as distinctive, even innovative. Wickhoff was among the first scholars,
along with Riegl, who helped recuperate the appreciation and academic study of late
antique art. While Wickhoff shared an interest in problems of form with some of his
Viennese contemporaries like Riegl, he himself advocated a philological and document-based approach to art history. In his autobiographical musings, Schlosser
contrasted this approach with the methods of connoisseurship that were popular at
this time, deliberately following the philological, source-based approach exemplified by Wickhoff.62 In advocating this method, Wickhoff did not abjure engagement with actual works of art, so often characterized as the exclusive province of the
11
Fig. 3.
Front facade of
Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna, 2008.
Photographer: Jorge
Royan / Alamy Stock
Photo.
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12
KAUFMANN
Fig. 4.
View through Room 22
of the Kunsthistorisches
Museum in Vienna,
featuring wood and ivory
carvings in the Sculpture
Collection, 1910.
Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek,
Bildarchiv und
Grafiksammlung.
connoisseur. Wickhoff taught seminars utilizing objects in the imperial collections,
and Schlosser took over this method of instruction from his teacher.
Schlosser attributed to Wickhoff an interest in intellectual history that went
beyond objects as well as his broader formation as a historian. After Schlosser spent
some time in Rome on a fellowship, Wickhoff spurred him to become a member of
the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (Institute for Austrian Historical Research), where Wickhoff headed the art history department. This institute is
the Austrian equivalent of the French École Nationale des Chartes. Students receive
instruction in paleography, heraldry, genealogy, diplomatics (the study of documents), sphragistics (the study of seals), and the use of archives. In Vienna, these
“auxiliary sciences” of history were taught at the time by the historian Theodor von
Sickel (1826–1908), whom Schlosser regarded as “incomparable.”63 Schlosser would
have learned how to analyze primary documents and the seals attached to them as
complements to his approach to art history (as a genre of history) and the use of
critical methods to determine the character of texts and artifacts.
Schlosser’s interests in philology and the study of original documents, evident
in his first academic publications, shaped the course and character of much of his
scholarship. His doctoral dissertation of 1888 on the cloister of Farfa in Italy is a
pioneering account of the impact of texts in the form of monastic rules on the development of medieval architecture.64 The paper Schlosser submitted for admission
into the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, subsequently published
in 1892, contained a catalog of written sources for the study of Carolingian art.
This is one of the earliest of his many fundamental publications of medieval textual
sources. Critical edition, publication, and commentary on the historical sources and
literature of art constituted a major part of Schlosser’s contribution to scholarship.
As noted previously, these interests culminated in Die Kunstliteratur, ein Handbuch
zur Quellenkunde der neueren Kunstgeschichte, a compendium of bibliographical
discussions of the literary sources on art from antiquity to the nineteenth century
that has been published in several editions and translations.65
Schlosser’s first formal job reflects the third aspect of his methodological interests. Around 1889, he became adjunct curator of the imperial collection of coins,
medals, and antiquities. His engagement with objects in Vienna is first evinced by
an article on seals published in 1892 in the Jahrbuch of the imperial collections;66
several essays on coins, medals, and an ivory saddle followed.67 After this early practical experience with numismatics and sphragistics, Schlosser started working in
what is now the Kunsthistorisches Museum soon after the building opened in 1891.
By the following year, Schlosser was perhaps already employed in what was initially
called the Sammlungen von Waffen und Kunstindustriellen Gegenstanden (Collections of Arms and Applied Industrial Arts), and in 1896 he was officially transferred
to this department. He became director of the collection in 1901 and published an
album illustrating its holdings in the same year. Later he reorganized this collection
as the Sammlung für Plastik und Kunstgewerbe (Collection of Sculpture and Decorative Arts) (fig. 4). Arms and armor and musical instruments were subsequently
moved into two separate collections. He also established a separate Schatzkammer
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(treasury) to include the objects that would have earlier been in royal or imperial
treasuries. Schlosser’s newly organized collections all survive in Vienna to this day
as separate entities, albeit with different names.
Even though he began teaching at the university at about the same time that
he started working in the Viennese collections, Schlosser seems always to have
regarded museum work as his chief occupation. In 1892, he gained the right to teach
independently at the university level by submitting his second doctoral thesis, a
Habilitationsschrift (dissertation) on a medieval manuscript, and in the same year
he started to teach regularly at the Universität Wien. He was named an ausserordentliche (adjunct or extraordinary) professor in 1901, and also became head of a
museum department. In 1905, he was granted the formal title and rank of Ausserordentlicher Professor (roughly adjunct full professor). But in 1903, Schlosser turned
13
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KAUFMANN
down an offer to become professor and head of the department of art history at the
German Charles-Ferdinand University (now Charles University) in Prague, and in
1909 supported Dvořák ahead of himself for a professorial chair in Vienna. It was
only with great reluctance that Schlosser gave up his position in the museum in
1922 to devote himself to teaching full time upon his appointment as director of the
second (and what ultimately became for a while the only) regular chair of art history
at the Universität Wien.68
Much of Schlosser’s teaching concentrated on artifacts and on texts. Early in his
career, he gave lectures on textual sources as well as on more general topics, and from
1910 on he focused intensively on actual works of art and monuments. Although he
was reputedly not a popular lecturer, the Übungen that Schlosser conducted as discussions in front of actual objects inspired publications out of students’ class reports.69
When he assumed his formal position as professorial chair, Schlosser devoted even
more of his teaching time to Übungen. He began to rotate two classes taught before
objects with one class on textual sources and one standard lecture class.70
Museum work had an important impact on Schlosser’s scholarship as well as
on his teaching. Besides his publications on the historiography and bibliography
of art history, the books he published (as distinct from the essays) are mainly catalogs or guides to the collections that he oversaw. Works of art also inspired him
to write lengthy and insightful essays, which may be regarded among his major
works. Several other essays expanded upon specific questions raised by the study of
individual objects. As witnessed in Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, Schlosser’s texts never remain at a merely descriptive or explanatory level but
develop his arguments into more general considerations of larger issues, including
musings on artistic creation. The Polish art historian Jan Białostocki provided an
apt metaphor for Schlosser’s fruitful conjunction of museum work and scholarship,
describing them as the mutually supportive “legs” of Schlosser’s “tripod.”71 He said
that “Schlosser brought into the world of objects his enormous knowledge of art
literature and he was able to combine his work on the history of criticism and theory
with the direct approach to sculpture and art objects.”72
The character of the collections for which Schlosser had responsibility indicates
their distinctive social and political situation, as Schlosser noted in his curriculum
vitae of 1914.73 They are comparable only to a few remaining royal or princely collections in Europe, like that of the House of Windsor or of the Prince of Liechtenstein. Schlosser called the institution in which he began to work in the 1890s not by
the name by which it is now known, the Kunsthistorischen Museum (art historical
museum), but by the Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum (art historical court museum).
The source given for many of the illustrations in his Kunstkammer book consequently indicate their provenance as Hofmuseum (court museum).
The Hofmuseum had been created for the Kunsthistorische Sammlungen des
Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses (art historical collections of the all highest imperial
house) to use as part of the original title of the annual periodical devoted to them in
which Schlosser frequently published. These collections belonged to the allerhöchsten (all highest) dynasty, the Erzhaus (Archhouse of) Habsburg, a title that reflects
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its claim to preeminence over all the other royal or imperial houses of Europe. The
collections were not the property of any individual state, people, or land, nor of the
entire polity over which the Habsburgs ruled: they belonged to the dynasty itself.
Schlosser was therefore not a state, public, or even private employee; rather, he was,
strictly speaking, a servant of the imperial court, a Hofdiener. From the 1890s, he
appeared in what was the Handbuch des allerhöchsten Hofes und des Hofstaates seiner
Kaiserlicher und Königlichen Apostolischen Majestät (Handbook of the all highest
court and household of his imperial and Royal Apostolic [i.e., Hungarian] Majesty).
This handbook continued the tradition of the Hofstaatverzeichnis, a directory listing
all members of the royal or imperial household, including court servants that dated
to the Middle Ages. Annual handbooks mention Schlosser first as curator and later
as director of the Sammlungen von Waffen und Kunstindustriellen Gegenstanden.
It is noteworthy that the listing of these collections appears as only one of several
subordinate branches of a part of the imperial household under the administration of
the Oberstkammerer (the Lord High Chamberlain). Hence the curators and their collections were not more important than the guards or the kitchen staff. As the separate
listing of their individual names and titles suggests, the ladies-in-waiting (who were
all nobles) were more important in rank than the museum directors or employees.
Schlosser received personal honors and distinctions for his museum service
in the name of the reigning emperor, Franz Josef: his awards and titles are imperial designations. In 1898, Schlosser received the silver Jubiläums-Hofmedaille (the
second highest medal granted on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of Franz
Josef ’s accession to the imperial throne). In the same year, Schlosser was recorded
as a knight of the royal order of the Crown of Italy (over which the Habsburgs
as successors to the Holy Roman emperors laid claim, even though they no longer
could rule over it), although Schlosser himself claimed “His Majesty” had granted
him the order of the Iron Crown (that of Lombardy, formerly a Habsburg domain),
third class, in 1908.74 In either case, this knighthood brought with it the right to be
called Ritter (a rank above Edler but below Baron). In 1913, Schlosser was named
k. und k. (kaiserlich and königlich, imperial and royal — that is, Austro-Hungarian)
Hofrat ([court] counselor), in recognition of his services. This title also indicates
how thoroughly the museum remained part of the court household. The title Hofrat
was until quite recently granted to heads of collections in the Republic of Austria,
which formally abolished the court and forbade the use of aristocratic titles in 1919.
While seemingly sympathetic with modern developments outlined in his book,
Schlosser’s intellectual formation, position, and activities took place in a world in
which the reward of titles such as Ritter and Hofrat shaped his outlook. These factors
are apparent in the genesis of Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance.
The Habsburgs had kept many of their collections together because they were not
regarded as the property of individual members of the Archhouse: rather, as noted
above, they belonged to the dynasty considered as a whole. They were treated as if
they were held in trust, derived from the idea of a fideicommissum (trust) in Roman
law, and were inalienable from that trust as belonging to the House of Habsburg.
This sense of legal trust, and the resultant responsibility to ensure that objects were
15
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KAUFMANN
Fig. 5.
Archduke Ferdinand of
Tyrol, ca. 1575.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
conserved intact, persisted and shines through Schlosser’s discussion of the various
functions of the modern museum in the final pages of the book. He concludes by
deeming the conservation of past objects for future generations the most important
function of the museum. This essentially conservative understanding of the museum’s fundamental imperative may, in his case, be related to Schlosser’s consciousness
of his role as curator of a collection that had preserved objects for half a millennium.
It similarly helps explain how Schlosser was left at sea when this world fell apart and
why he ultimately went on to make questionable political choices.75
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance:
The Origins of the Book in Relation to Schlosser’s Work and Ideas
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance weaves together many of
Schlosser’s activities, interests, and idiosyncrasies. For more than fifteen years before
he published the book, Schlosser was working in the Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum where he was directly involved with the preservation, display, and research
on objects from Habsburg court collections. Many of the objects under his care had
an old provenance from Habsburg archdukes. Schlosser had become familiar with
published and unpublished sources on them by occupational necessity as well as
through his education and interests.
During his first years at the museum, Schlosser wrote pioneering essays on court
art of the Middle Ages.76 They represent some of the earliest treatments of the topic
and created a lasting paradigm for what would become “international” art and style.
However, at the time his essays were written, Schlosser’s approach did not conform to
the dominant tendency to characterize objects according to geographic and indeed
national criteria. His conception of the court as a supranational entity independent of
the national origins of the artists who made individual works of art helped establish
an approach to patronage and collecting that has retained its vitality in scholarship.77
It is likely that Schlosser’s intense involvement with the Habsburg collections helped
reinforce the idea that considerations of courts offered a fruitful way to interpret and
organize otherwise disparate material.
The preface that Schlosser appears to have composed in 1923 for the second edition
of the book states directly that the inspiration for Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern
der Spätrenaissance, and for many of its illustrations, originated in his involvement
with the collections of Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria (1529–95).78 The drafts for
this new preface cannot now be located;79 even without the verification of its origins,
Schlosser’s presentation of material implies that the archduke’s collections and their
specific Habsburg associations inspired him to think more deeply about the phenomenon of collecting, and that of the Habsburgs in particular.
The aegis under which he literally placed his book — namely, an image of Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol (fig. 5) — suggests this source of inspiration. The frontispiece to the original edition of Schlosser’s book is a reproduction of an anonymous
portrait of the archduke circa 1575. The choice of this image seems deliberate, as
the portrait contains many references to the Habsburgs and to Ferdinand’s status.
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KAUFMANN
Fig. 6.
Francesco Segala
(Italian, d. 1592).
Portrait of Ferdinand II,
1582.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Ferdinand appears inside an illusionistic frame of garlands tied together with redand-white ribbons, the colors of the House of Austria. He is wearing a chain with
the Golden Fleece, the emblem of the chivalric order that the Habsburgs inherited
from the Burgundians and adopted as their House order in the sixteenth century.
As second son of Emperor Ferdinand I (r. 1556–64), and with the death of his older
brother, Emperor Maximilian II (r. 1564–76), the archduke became head of the order.
Ferdinand holds a club in his hand, an allusion to the Habsburgs’ identification with
Hercules and Ferdinand’s role as leader of imperial forces in wars fought against
the Turks in the 1550s. These events figured greatly in the creation of Ferdinand’s
self-image as a war hero: they appear, for example, in two reliefs carved by Alexander Colin on the archduke’s tomb in the Silberne Kapelle (Silver Chapel) of the
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Hofkirche (Court Church) in Innsbruck.80 In the painting, Ferdinand stands before
a column that symbolizes fortitude, underscoring the virtue that it was claimed he
had demonstrated in his feats of arms. The laurel wreath on his head is that of a victor. The mountainous landscape in the background likely refers to the Tyrol, over
which Ferdinand ruled, along with Vorderösterreich (Austrian Forelands west of the
present Republic), from 1564 onward. Three years later, Ferdinand began to reside in
Innsbruck, the capital of the Tyrol, where this picture was most likely painted. It has
also been suggested that the juxtaposition of columnar framing with floral garland
is apposite to Ferdinand’s interest in both art and nature as a universal collector.81
The frontispiece of Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance was
moreover not the first portrait of Archduke Ferdinand that Schlosser illustrated. The
publication of a portrait of Ferdinand in a significant place in an earlier book further
illuminates the important role Schlosser granted to the Habsburgs in the history of
the collections. Schlosser used a small portrait of the archduke in wax (fig. 6), now
attributed to Francesco Segala, as the frontispiece for the album mentioned above
that was published in 1901 to illustrate the Sammlung für Plastik und Kunstindustriellen Gegenstanden, of which he had just been named director.82 (Schlosser used
the same picture again in Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, as
fig. 63.)83 Schlosser may have mulled over this wax portrait for a decade, during
the years when he was probably thinking about issues presented in Die Kunst- und
Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance. In 1910, two years after the appearance of his
book on collecting, he published an important lengthy essay on wax portraiture.84
The wax portrait of the archduke presents even clearer references to the House
of Austria and to Ferdinand’s status. The version of the Order of the Golden Fleece
Ferdinand is shown wearing is more noticeable because it contains more than
the medal of the fleece depicted in the painting: it includes the full chain of the
order, which consists of striking irons interspersed with bursts of flame. The soft
crown of an archduke, a symbol of their estate worn only by members of the House
of Habsburg, lies on a table to his left. The helmet behind it bears red and white
plumes, the colors of the House of Austria. Ferdinand is holding a baton or staff of
command, which again is red and white. The cloth of honor before which he stands
is green, the color of the Tyrol, over which he ruled. His armor bears a cross, a sign
of his self-image as crusader.
A laurel crown like that seen in the painted portrait was likewise given to poets,
a reference to Ferdinand’s support of the arts. Ferdinand is better known as a collector than as a warrior. When he moved to Innsbruck, Ferdinand had Schloss Ambras
adapted both as a residence for his morganatic spouse, Philippine Welser, and to
house and display his collections. He built an entire building at Ambras for the latter purpose, where he had his library and Kunstkammer placed. This was one of the
first edifices built in postmedieval Europe explicitly to house collections; previously,
spaces in already existing buildings were used for this purpose. In the case of new
constructions, collections were placed in available secondary spaces such as the floors
above stables.85 Early depictions of Ambras refer to a building with the collections as
a musaeum, one of the first examples of the use of this word in this context.86 Later,
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KAUFMANN
Ferdinand constructed an additional building for his holdings of arms and armor.87
While the caption to Ferdinand’s portrait in Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern
der Spätrenaissance indicates that it was located in the Hofmuseum in Vienna at the
time of publication, it is now back on view in Schloss Ambras, where it probably was
displayed originally. Schlosser discussed the Ambras Kunstkammer the most extensively of all such collections in his book, and its changing fate within the history of
the Habsburg dynasty provided him with rich material for contemplation.
Soon after Ferdinand’s death, a few important items from his extensive holdings were amalgamated into the collections of the emperor (the nominal head of
the House of Habsburg), but the bulk stayed in Ambras until the early nineteenth
century. They were kept there out of respect for a codicil to a will drawn up for
Ferdinand stipulating that they must stay together in trust. In 1806, most of the
Ambras collections were nonetheless moved to Vienna for safekeeping in response
to the threat of the Napoleonic Wars, because in 1805 French and Bavarian troops
plundered the Tyrol, which was temporarily ceded to Bavaria. At the conclusion of
the Napoleonic Wars, the collections were placed on display in the Lower Belvedere,
originally the Viennese garden palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy; the Upper Belvedere had housed the imperial painting collections since about 1780.88 By the 1880s,
Schloss Ambras was renovated to serve once again as a museum, but most of the
renowned artifacts remained in Vienna.
By the nineteenth century, the proprietary designation of the Ambras collections took another turn. As of 1882, they were definitively divided between Ambras
and Vienna, the imperial capital. As Schlosser noted in the original 1908 edition
of Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, the archduke’s collections
did not remain intact as they had been in Ambras. Holdings earmarked as works of
art were sundered out. The more prized objects were displayed in the Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum (now the Kunsthistorisches Museum), where many remain to
this day. A chief task for this institution, as the primary public exhibition site for
major works of art in Vienna at the time, was to design a display adequate to the
Habsburg holdings composing the Ambras collections. When he was transferred to
the curatorial department of this institution (which would later become the Sammlung Kunstindustriellen Gegenstände, headed by Albert Ilg) in 1892, this became
part of Schlosser’s charge.89
This concern was demonstrated even before the arrival of Schlosser in the Sammlung Kunstindustriellen Gegenstände. The most famous object that was to go on view
in the new museum building came from Ambras. This was Benvenuto Cellini’s saliera
(salt cellar; 1540–43), among the most celebrated examples of Renaissance goldsmithery (see fig. 24). Cellini originally gave his masterpiece to King Francis I of France,
and Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol had received it as a gift from King Charles IX of
France in 1570, when he served as the king’s proxy at the wedding of his niece, the
Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria. Technically, Cellini’s work would have belonged to
what later became the Sammlung für Plastik und Kunstindustriellen Gegenstanden,
along with all the other objects brought to Vienna from Ambras. Cellini’s masterpiece
was chosen to have pride of place among those objects exhibited in the prominent
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21
central room (Room 19) of the parterre of the new museum building. This room was
nicknamed the Gold Saal (Gold Room) because it was the place where the rarest
and most precious goldsmithery and applied arts were displayed. One of the architects of the Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum, Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer, designed
a special pedestal for Cellini’s work, but it was never executed. The Cellini salt cellar and its fate were clearly well known to Schlosser when he wrote Die Kunst- und
Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance: he illustrated it with two other items from the
royal gift of Charles IX to Ferdinand.90 When he became director of this collection,
Schlosser wrote a booklet on Cellini’s salt cellar.91
The Gold Room features decoration unique among the spaces in the museum
intended for the exhibition of objects. Like the spaces over the grand staircase that
serve as a representational entry, its ceiling bears a large historical allegory by Julius
Victor Berger celebrating Habsburg patronage of the arts (fig. 7). It shows Cellini
(wearing blue, in the middle ground toward the left side) holding his salt cellar,
with Archduke Ferdinand II appearing in the background on one side of Emperor
Maximilian I (a patron of Albrecht Dürer), and another major collector, Archduke
Leopold Wilhelm, on the other side.92 The presentation of the Habsburgs, and Ferdinand in particular, as collectors was emblematic of Schlosser’s book and would
have resonated among readers of his study.
While the title of his book suggests that Kunst- und Wunderkammern constituted a widespread phenomenon of the late Renaissance, Schlosser largely limited
his discussion to the collections of the Habsburgs and to a few of their ancestors.
He dedicated approximately 50 pages out of the 137 in the text of the first edition to
the Habsburgs and to the collections of their immediate Burgundian predecessors.
Thirty-eight pages of those on Habsburg Kunstkammern were granted to the collections of Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol in Ambras alone. Schlosser also dedicated
many pages to other collections of the Austrian Habsburgs in his treatment of the
later history of collecting. Many of the objects from these peripheral collections
would have been on view in the Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum. In comparison,
the Munich, Dresden, and Berlin collections receive less than a page each, that in
Gottorp (near Schleswig) only one page, and many other princely collections of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries receive no mention at all. While Die Kunst- und
Fig. 7.
Julius Victor Berger
(Austrian, 1850–1902).
Ceiling of Gold Saal.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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22
KAUFMANN
Fig. 8.
Joris Hoefnagel
(Netherlandish,
1542–1601).
Innsbruck with View of
Ambras, n.d.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance has been fairly described as a history of collections from the time of the temple treasures of the Greeks to the Musée Napoléon, it
has also simultaneously been called a description of the Ambras collections (fig. 8).93
More may be said about the effect of the Ambras collections on Schlosser’s
thinking and consequently on their impact on Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern
der Spätrenaissance. The construction Kunst- und Wunderkammern is found in two
documents. First, in a letter to Baron (Freiherr) Sigmund Khevenhüller, Archduke
Ferdinand mentions “antiquiteten . . . , deren ain guete anzal in unser kunst- und
wunderkamer unther zusamen bracht und uns darmit sonderlich dellectiren und
erlieben (antiquities . . . , a good number of which have already been brought together
in our Kunst- und Wunderkammern, so that they may especially delight us and be
experienced by us).94 The second instance of this construction is found in the aforementioned codicil to Ferdinand’s will signed on 15 June 1594, wherein reference is
made to Kunst- und Wunderkammern in parallel to arms and armor: “kunst- oder
wunder- dëssgleichen rüst und harnischcämern und, was darinnen ist” (Kunst- or
Wunderkammern — and at the same time, arms and armor chamber).95 As a keen
student of philology, Schlosser probably was familiar with this citation. If he had
not seen the original document, he would have had the opportunity to see it in print
among other excerpts from the Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv (House, Court, and
State Archive) that had been published in the 1894 volume of the Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses.96 The likelihood is great,
given that Schlosser’s essay on ivory saddles was published in the same volume.97
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These references to Kunst- und Wunderkammern are unique. They do not appear
again in contemporary inventories of Habsburg collections, nor in those of other
collections. The description of Ferdinand’s collection drawn up in the immediately
posthumous inventory of the collection of 1596 does not talk about its Kunst- und
Wunderkammern. There, the reference to this part of Ferdinand’s collection simply calls it a “Kunstkammer.”98 Schlosser refers to the 1596 inventory and its use of
the words “great Kunstkammer” directly in Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der
Spätrenaissance.99 He clearly was very familiar with the 1596 inventory, because the
descriptions of the display cases in Ambras that Schlosser presents in the Die Kunstund Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance are taken from it verbatim. Schlosser cites
the publication of the manuscript of the codicil;100 even if he did not have direct
access to the original, another contemporary copy of this inventory was kept in the
collection of which he was curator and is still preserved in what the Kunsthistorisches
Museum now calls the Kunstkammer.101
Schlosser’s choice of “Kunst- und Wunderkammern” to describe princely collections is significant. It has had an impact on subsequent scholarship and contributed to
the popularity of the word Wunderkammer (which does appear in some early historical contexts).102 However, the use of this conjoined term immediately raises several
questions, and one wonders why Schlosser chose to use it rather than Kunstkammer. He probably knew that the specific words Kunst- und Wunderkammern were
used only in reference to Ferdinand’s collection, in contrast with the widespread use
of Kunstkammer or, for that matter, the occasional appearance of Wunderkammer.
Considering Schlosser’s philological acuity, knowledge of sources, and, in general,
astounding erudition, it seems surprising that he never commented on or further
explained his choice of terms.
Perhaps the countervailing force of historiography, about which Schlosser was
similarly extremely knowledgeable, helps explain his decision. As Schlosser knew
well, his was not the first book on an individual collection or on collecting. The first
contemporary catalog of a collection to have been published in print during the
period in which the collection itself was actively being built was a contemporary
description of the armor in Ambras that the archduke had had published in 1593, and
which Schlosser cites.103 Schlosser was aware of the oldest methodological work on
collections, Samuel Quiccheberg’s volume of 1565, and he was familiar with much of
the subsequent literature on the Kunstkammer, from the seventeenth century to his
own time.104 Considering the lack of any earlier synthetic treatment of the topic, his
knowledge is impressive. And yet he nevertheless perpetuated an earlier error.
Several scholars who had written on the Habsburgs’ collections during the
nineteenth century had already made reference to Kunstkammern in Prague and
Ambras.105 In a recent dissertation on the Kunstkammern of the Habsburgs, Paulus Rainer notes that the use of the designation Wunderkammern, as in Kunst- und
Wunderkammern, first appeared in a secondary publication about Ambras. This was
the early nineteenth-century catalog of the collections by Alois Primisser. Rainer
also observes that even though there was no basis for the use of the designation
Kunst- und Wunderkammern in reference to other Habsburg collections, several late
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nineteenth-century scholars had used it. Rainer points out that in 1897 Schlosser
had himself already applied the term to other collections that never would have
employed this rubric.106 In Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance,
Schlosser cites some of these preceding studies, including that of Primisser.107
To use the language of Sigmund Freud (Schlosser’s Viennese contemporary,
with whom his favorite student Ernst Kris studied psychoanalysis), Schlosser’s
use of the term Kunst- und Wunderkammern may appear overdetermined. Yet it
remains a matter of speculation why Schlosser decided to employ Kunst- und Wunderkammern, a construction for which there was little contemporary basis, and, as
noted, Ferdinand’s collection was generally described as a Kunstkammer. Was it out
of knowledge of or respect for earlier scholars, or simply because the conjoined term
had come into common usage in Vienna by his time? We do not know, but a reading
may be proposed. By using Kunst- und Wunderkammern instead of Kunstkammern,
Schlosser both called attention to the capacious nature of this sort of collection and
emphasized that it contained more than just art. As we shall see, the definition of art
and its treatment within collections emerged as crucial themes in Die Kunst- und
Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance.
Some Other Characteristics and Themes of Schlosser’s Text
The problem of nomenclature is but one of many that a reader may encounter in
reading Schlosser’s book. His literary style and diction make Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance challenging to read, even for those who are strong
in German. Frequently, Schlosser’s sentences are rhetorical periods that run to nine
or ten printed lines, piling independent clause onto clause with lengthy subordinate
clauses interspersed. His choice of words gravitates toward Viennese or Austrian
expressions current during his time. While the translation published here mitigates
some of these difficulties, Schlosser’s immense and often elusive erudition sometimes compounds problems of obtaining even a basic understanding of what he may
mean in Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance.
Some examples taken from the preface and the beginning of the book indicate
the sorts of difficulties that exist even for a well-informed reader. Schlosser placed
the date 1907 at the end of his preface, although the recorded date of publication for
the book is 1908. This dating might not seem so unusual, since many books may go
through a lengthy editorial or publishing process before they are printed. However,
Schlosser prefixed to the date 1907 the phrase im Marsjahre, “in the Mars year.” This
is puzzling. It must be some sort of reference to astronomy, rather than astrology,
because astrologically the year 1907 does not seem to have had any special association with the planet Mars. One interpretation could be that the date represents a
witty comment by Schlosser, who, like many authors, felt that the publication of
his book was proceeding at an overly slow pace. A Mars year may be calculated as
needing 684 (rather than 365¼) earth days to complete one revolution, meaning
that Schlosser may have estimated that his book would appear in 1908 when he
wrote the preface in 1907. Another possible interpretation is that he was alluding to
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a topic of considerable interest when he was completing the book in 1907. Then, as in
2018, astronomers studied features on Mars leading to hypotheses that water existed
on the Red Planet. In 1907, astronomers thought they had observed the existence
of canals on Mars and debated the possibility.108 In this sense, 1907 could also have
been called a “Mars year.”
Whatever the case may be, Schlosser’s knowledge of astronomy as revealed in
this reference is just one of many fields with which this polymath was evidently
familiar. As described above, in the first sentence of the text itself, Schlosser compacts a sequence of references to psychology, cultural history, and historiography.109
In the fourth line, he makes an aside about the collecting drive of animals instantiated by the magpie, a bird that is commonly believed to “steal” all kinds of materials
to make its nest. Next comes a reference to the drive to collect found in children.
All precede a general discussion of ornament on the second page, and to its origins
in “primitive” peoples, the province of anthropology. In accord with his notion of
Sammelwesen, Schlosser then drops a reference to the “protoplasm” of treasures and
the treasury, which he finds at the origin of the modern museum: here he borrows
a term from cellular biology introduced by the nineteenth-century Czech scientist
J. E. Purkyně. These references are only some of many that give pause to even a
learned reader confronted with the cornucopia of knowledge that pours forth from
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance.
Schlosser’s use of language is noteworthy as more than an expression of his erudition. He does not use the German word Elster for the magpie but rather the Italian
words gazza ladra (thieving magpie).110 Where gazza would suffice to translate a
magpie, the addition ladra calls to mind a well-known (at least at the time) opera by
Gioachino Rossini, which was first performed in 1817. Gazza ladra is only the first
occasion when Schlosser lapses into a language other than German in Die Kunstund Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, but not by far the last. Allusions to literature and music likewise recur repeatedly to challenge the reader’s comprehension as
well as knowledge of music and languages, which Schlosser plays with throughout
the book. For instance, Schlosser supports his reference to children’s play with an
untranslated French-language citation from Michel de Montaigne’s essays. He follows this with an allusion to Friedrich Schiller’s letters On the Aesthetic Education of
Man (as the publication is known in English). A little further on, Schlosser alludes
to a passage from Herodotus without acknowledging its source, much the way he
elsewhere quotes Greek without translation.111 These examples display his knowledge of literary texts as well as languages.
Schlosser is not consistent in the way he handles modern foreign languages.
Sometimes he keeps the text in the original, but at other times he alludes to a wellknown ancient text or epithet in German.112 Nor is he consistent in his treatment of
classical languages.113
All this may be related to an observation made by Gombrich, who said that
Schlosser was no mere philologist.114 Although Schlosser commanded many philological tools, he clearly enjoyed playing with language in a way that foreshadows
something that Roland Barthes would describe as the “pleasure of the text.”115 But
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Gombrich meant something else. However one may regard his qualities as an author,
Schlosser had other goals in writing Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance. Although contradictions have been found between Schlosser’s supposed
affinity in this text for “bizarre things” and contemporaneous scientific progress and
aesthetic criteria, Schlosser was fundamentally grappling with the major question
with which he was concerned throughout his life: “What is art?”116
The Structure, Organization, and Strategies of
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance deals with a multitude of
themes, as Kurz suggests, but the search for a definition of Kunst (art) throughout
provides coherence. Schlosser might at first appear to raise the question of defining the term, if this notion may be taken as presupposing a purely philosophical
or philological issue. He frequently uses the words Kunst and Kunstwerk (artwork),
but in the book he never specifically says what they mean. Their meaning must be
inferred from the arguments he presents, which reveal his underlying assumptions.
In the end, the book defines Kunst through a historical account of collecting. Kunst
is expressed through its instantiation in history, as it was implicitly in the institution
where Schlosser worked and which shaped his approach to his book. The Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum, Vienna’s “court museum of the history of art,” displayed objects
in historical (and geographic) order.
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance offers a historical account
of changing notions of collecting in relation to art. In his history of Sammelwesen,
Schlosser distinguishes different types of collections and their place in history according to their treatment of art. His explanation for these differences relates collections
to several factors, chiefly the cultural and intellectual attitudes of the times and the
seemingly timeless national characteristics and inclinations that do not change.
Although not fully articulated, Schlosser’s idea of how Kunst is presented in collections accounts for the divisions in the book. The importance of Kunst suggests the
book’s central focus is on Kunstkammern, or rather, on Kunst- und Wunderkammern. Kunst- und Wunderkammern appear at a specific moment in the history of
collecting, when Kunst gradually came to be more fully recognized as something to
be distinguished from other objects or ideas. This is implicit in the use of both words,
Kunst and Wundern (wonders), in the concept of Kunst- und Wunderkammern. The
distinction and gradual differentiation between these two terms in the history of collecting affords another explanation for why he chose to use Kunst- und Wunderkammern, despite its questionable philological and historical validity.
A brief outline of some significant points in Schlosser’s book suggests how the
idea of Kunst is implicated in determining the shape of his arguments about collecting. The book begins with general observations, in keeping with Schlosser’s premise
that it is about Sammelwesen. However, by the second page, Schlosser has launched
into the historical account of the subject promised in the book’s subtitle. The succeeding twenty pages remark on collections from antiquity through the Middle Ages,
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which constitute what Schlosser terms the “prehistory” of the Kunst- und Wunderkammern. A discussion of the Kunst- und Wunderkammern themselves forms
the next major division of the book, which begins by addressing French collections
of the fourteenth century. This section proceeds through Burgundian and then early
Habsburg collections, dealing with Kunst- und Wunderkammern as represented
largely by the collections of Archduke Ferdinand and those of other contemporary
Habsburgs. It then considers other princely and private collections, virtuosos, and
Italian collections before engaging with eighteenth-century collections and older literature on Kunstkammern. The relatively brief final section of the book contends
with “the subsequent development of collecting.” This may be simply put as the
recent history of collections, or, to use language of our own time, the posthistory
of Kunst- und Wunderkammern. If one regards the book as a triptych, the posthistory of late Renaissance collections complements the other wing on their prehistory.
Together they frame the central, main section, which is devoted to a discussion of
Kunst- und Wunderkammern.
By the third page of his text, Schlosser has offered summary descriptions of the
more generalized kinds of assemblages he associates with mere compendia of objects
to arrive at an exemplary type of collection that is key for his arguments about art:
the ancient Greek temple treasuries, which contained many works of art. Schlosser
deems them the first public museums of “living art,” which were openly accessible to
every citizen in ancient Greece, like the treasures of Schlosser’s own day. For this classically oriented scholar, art foregrounded his interest in the collections of antiquity.
Here the Sammelwesen that Schlosser identifies as his primary concern in writing the
book corresponds to another notion of Wesen (essence). Schlosser relates these treasuries to the Wesen of the ancient Greeks, whom he esteems a Künstlervolk (a people
of artists). The treasury is part of their essence as a people, since this essence is related
to the making of art. Art was a defining element in the treasury, albeit still mixed with
other national, municipal, and political interests. Hence, the temple treasury was
implicitly (and obviously) still not quite the same as a purely modern art museum.
Art remains a defining factor in Schlosser’s description of what happened to collections in the next major period of their history, the Middle Ages. He contrasts the
medieval church treasury with the ancient Greek treasury. According to Schlosser,
medieval treasuries remained true to the love of fairy tales that characterized the
Middle Ages: they strove to possess the wonderful, strange, and unusual. In contrast
with the rationality of antiquity and the Greeks’ unadulterated love for art, medieval
treasuries strove to possess the remarkable. They reflected the belief in such things
as the demonic power of stars that characterized the era. These sorts of superstitions
indicate that the Middle Ages were still enamored by what Schlosser calls a verzauberte Welt (enchanted world), rather than by the rationally analyzed and ordered
world of the ancient Greeks. Medieval treasuries had much more in common with
the character of later Kunst- und Wunderkammern than with the temple treasuries
of antiquity.117
Kunst- und Wunderkammern may be associated with a renewed appreciation
for art that emerged in a stage of collecting that succeeded the Middle Ages. This
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KAUFMANN
chronology is significant because contemporary scholars might have regarded the
epoch under discussion — the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries — as
medieval. Schlosser credits the Dukes of Berry, the extraordinary Kunstfreunde
(friends or lovers of art), with spearheading this new stage of collecting and opens
the central section of his book with a discussion of their collections.118 John, Duke
of Berry, stood at the border between two worlds: while still interested in the value
of materials and the remarkable or historical as such (implicit marks of a medieval
attitude), he nevertheless exhibited a significant interest in the formal or artistic
value of objects. In this manner, he resembles a later friend of art, Ferdinand II
of Habsburg, who similarly collected works of art for their own sake. Along with
King Charles V, the Duke of Berry was France’s greatest “patron of art before the
Renaissance.”119 The ducal collections may also be related to Kunst- und Wunderkammern like Ferdinand’s of the Spätrenaissance, because the Duke of Berry’s
holdings still contained all kinds of Kleinkram (odds and ends). He describes
Kleinkram as being much like the artifacts in Ambras. In Schlosser’s view, little distinguishes the duke’s “northern-medieval characteristics” from the “Renaissance
movement as it crossed the Alps at the end of the fifteenth century.” They thus
pertain to what he calls “the late Renaissance” as it was expressed in Kunst- und
Wunderkammern — late in this sense because they were formed several centuries
after the Duke of Berry.
The collections of the Dukes of Berry, of the Dukes of Burgundy, and of the earlier sixteenth-century Habsburgs anticipate the Kunst- und Wunderkammern of
the late Renaissance. Beyond the reasons suggested above, and because of his unrestricted access to the Ambras collection, Schlosser believed they were the richest,
most compendious, and also best-illustrated examples of Kunst- und Wunderkammern. His description of the Ambras collections encompasses the library, armor collection, and portrait gallery in addition to the Kunstkammer per se. His account
draws common threads between them, among which two are particularly noteworthy. First, Schlosser repeatedly singles out Ferdinand’s proclivities as a collector as
those belonging to a great lover of art, related to the greatest art lovers in European
history. Second, Schlosser repeatedly highlights individual objects, parts of the
Kunstkammer, and divisions of the collection as connecting the “curious and artful”
or the “strange and artistic.” In his estimation, the outfitting of the Kunstkammer
with Naturwunder (natural wonders) of all kinds hanging from the walls and ceilings
(crocodiles, fetuses, antlers, bones, etc.) corresponds to the late Renaissance inclination to unite art with wonders. Conjoining these realms, the Kunstkammer in his
account implicitly lays the ground for their differentiation, which would lead to the
independent existence of a true art collection.
In Schlosser’s view, the Ambras Kunstkammer is characteristic of the late Renaissance in two key ways: it represents the revival of the importance of art, and it is
inherently organized according to a certain order or principle. Both these features
correspond to ideas adumbrated in antiquity, if realized more fully in modern times,
and hence reborn in the time of the “Renaissance”: the concept of art, as seen in
Greek temples, and the idea of order, as in the Logos of Greek (classical) thought.
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A LANDMARK RECONSIDERED
Schlosser describes at length the division of the Ambras collection into twenty cabinets. He says this represents its striving for method; Ambras was moreover far better
and more rationally organized than were most other contemporary collections. For
instance, the 1598 inventory of the Munich collections reveals that despite Quiccheberg’s ideal presentation, they were a Sammelsurium (a disjointed hodgepodge).120
Above all, the order of Ambras contrasts with the Kunstkammer of Emperor
Rudolf II (r. 1576–1612) in Prague.121
Rudolf II’s “colorful and adventurous” collection was the third major one of its
era (after Ambras and Munich) that Schlosser discusses.122 Schlosser calls the Prague
collections of painting and sculpture notable and says that in them Rudolf II displayed a love and understanding of art that was comparable to other great collectors
such as Philip II of Spain or Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (in the seventeenth century). He approvingly describes Rudolf ’s inclinations as “modern,” which must mean
here that the emperor’s appreciation for art was a sign of his modernity. But Rudolf ’s
collections were lacking in method and order, according to Schlosser: in them the
strange and curious were mixed with art objects to a far greater degree than in other
collections (like that of Ambras). They were thus not yet thoroughly modern.
Schlosser says that a recent description (that of Josef Svátek, who is not directly
cited and whose work he otherwise regards as unreliable) could call Rudolf ’s Kunstkammer not unjustly a “Barnumesque Museum.”123 This is a reference to the museum
of wonders created in New York City by the nineteenth-century American entrepreneur P. T. Barnum (1810–91), best known for founding the circus that survived from
1871 until 2017 as the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Barnum’s museum
(established in 1841) may be considered a kind of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! franchise
combined with sideshow entertainment.124
Although his approach to the paintings now seems problematic, Schlosser has
the merit of being the first modern art historian to illustrate photographs of works
by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526–93). He perceptively related Arcimboldo’s works to
Rudolf II’s Kunstkammer, even while he regarded the former’s paintings as curious
and fantastical compositions corresponding to the taste of the time.125
The mixture of science and art and magic and superstition that Schlosser
detected in Rudolf II’s collections for him amounted to more than personal
expressions of psychopathology, although such qualities were to be attributed to
the emperor too. Absurdities like those encountered in Rudolf II’s holdings are
representative of the taste for collecting in “the German North.”126 According to
Schlosser, Johannes Kepler was forced to draw up horoscopes at the same time he
was making new efforts to comprehend the cosmos. In Prague, newer attitudes that
led to the discoveries of modern science were in conflict with medieval beliefs. In
Schlosser’s view, the use of learned allegories (of which he might have presented
Arcimboldo as an example) do not accord with contemporary modes of thinking;
especially in Germany, the way to modern knowledge passed through clutter and
error, as epitomized in the Kunstkammer.127
For Schlosser, national or ethnic differences as expressed in collections impeded
the full development of Kunst- und Wunderkammern into modern museums, just
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KAUFMANN
as they hindered the development of modern science. Kunst- und Wunderkammern may be found in the German-speaking lands, but they are to be distinguished
from comparable contemporaneous collections of curiosities in Italy. In Schlosser’s
opinion, much that is German still adheres to the abstruse knowledge embodied in
the Kunstkammer.128 Italian collections contrast with those in the North through
their relationship to authentically scientific interests. Italy was the true home of the
revival of antique ideas, including those of art, as well as of scientific developments
(exemplified by Kepler and Galileo Galilei) that would lead to the modern age. In
one memorable passage, Schlosser sums up the argument that he would develop in
the last section of his book, contrasting the attitudes of the Germans with the “high
regard for artistic form” and “levelheaded, practical mentality” of the Italians, “of
whom it can be said that mathematics is the national science.” Italy, he goes on to
say, “had always been deeply averse to the romantic witches’ kitchens and the spooky
eccentricities of the North, and as such it always sought to extract the knowledge
it needed in pure form. Hence in the birthplace of the modern natural sciences we
naturally find private collectors establishing Naturalienkabinette very early on, but
they are almost never amalgamated with artworks and curios.”129
In Schlosser’s view, rationality, the true appreciation of art, and the division of
what was worth knowing from what was not correspond to the separation of art
from wonders and from science in collections: while these distinctions could be
attributed to the Italians, this was not true for the Germans. It was therefore not
from the German Kunst- und Wunderkammern that modern ideas of art and science and their separation developed but from Italian collections. Eventually, the
modern art museum came into existence in England, which had inherited ideas
originating in Italy. The development of the modern museum is accordingly the
topic of the last section of Schlosser’s book, which traces the further evolution of
collecting until his own day.
Schlosser argues that the clearer definition of Kunst as something distinctive
began in the Renaissance and culminated with the creation of modern art museums. The initial stages occurred in Italy, the land of artists, where the heritage of
antiquity never ceased to exist and where ancient works of art could still be seen
and were collected. It was on Italian soil that the oldest differentiated collections
of purely artistic, purely scientific, and purely historical content came into being.
Curiosities and rarities had at most an extremely modest part in them, unlike the
situation with the Kunstkammer. Art history, art criticism, and aesthetics as well as
exhibitions of art and the first pure collectors of art were all born in Italy, according
to Schlosser.
More recent collectors and collections (from the eighteenth century on) provide
a mere coda to Schlosser’s book. His account of the entire development of key stages
in the ultimate evolution of art, science, and history museums takes up only approximately eight pages, leading to the opening of the modern public museum in England.
For Schlosser, what has been called the Enlightenment provided merely a fillip to
Italian ideas of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In his synopsis, clarity of taste,
interest in form or in the concept of art for its own sake, aesthetic discernment and
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judgment, and a mathematically rational approach not only distinguish aspects of
modern science but also ultimately define art, and all had their origins in Italy.
Reception and Impact: Barnumesque Museum and Wunderkammern
For six decades, Schlosser remained the authority on and one of the few interpreters
of Kunst- und Wunderkammern. Some scattered publications added information
on collections to which Schlosser had not paid much attention, and others amplified
his opinions.130 But for the most part, even the most substantial studies of collecting do not seem to have done much to change the paradigmatic status of his book.
Alphons Lhotsky’s extensive history of the collections that made up the Kunsthistorisches Museum, written for the fiftieth anniversary of the museum’s opening
(scheduled for what happened to be three years after Schlosser’s death), offers a
comprehensive overview of Habsburg collecting based largely on documents published in the Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorisches Museums (in its various iterations),
a use of sources that Schlosser would have appreciated. This account fleshed out
details about individual Habsburgs as patrons and collectors but was not intended
to (nor did it) alter the impression made by Schlosser’s explication of the place of
Kunstkammern in the history of collecting.131
However, interest in Kunstkammern began growing in the 1960s and came to
a head in the 1970s.132 A catalogue raisonné of published inventories of Kunstkammern and related collections completed in 1970 expanded the discussion beyond
Germany to include England and France.133 Along with articles, books appeared
on collections that Schlosser had not mentioned: the Kunstkammern in Kassel and
Württemberg134 and another in Dresden, which he discussed only briefly but was recreated in 1978 as part of an exhibition in the United States.135 Probably most important was the 1976 publication of the 1607–11 inventory of Rudolf II’s Kunstkammer in
Prague, among the largest (if not the largest) of its kind.136 Schlosser had not known
about this inventory, which reportedly was discovered by chance and announced to
the public in 1966; its rediscovery soon led to reconsideration of the imperial collections.137 Schlosser’s interpretation nonetheless had an important role in inspiring this revival of interest, and his influence was not easily dislodged. A guide to
the Kunstkammer that had recently been reinstalled in Ambras appeared in 1977.138
Elisabeth Scheicher, the spiritus movens behind this 1970s reinstallation and author
of the guide’s historical introduction, reflected on Schlosser and openly indicated
one of her inspirations in the title of an expanded treatment of the subject published
in 1979 as Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Habsburger.139 This followed on the
appearance in 1978 of a new edition of Schlosser’s book itself, enlarged to contain
references to many other Kunstkammern; this was both a sign of and a spur to the
revival of interest in the Kunstkammer.140
Since the appearance of that edition, more than eight hundred publications on
Kunstkammern and objects related to them have materialized.141 As Schlosser’s
comparison of the collections of Ferdinand II and Rudolf II suggests, considerable
diversity exists among such collections, and no single description of them could be
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adequate. One of Schlosser’s accomplishments was to provide an overarching view of
early modern collections, which few scholars have even begun to attempt to replace.
It is not possible here to suggest more than a brief outline of the publications of the
last forty-plus years, whose quantity already appeared daunting in the early 1980s.142
In any case, an observation made by one of Schlosser’s biographers remains apt: there
is scarcely a newer work of research on collections without an obligatory reference
to the pioneering accomplishment of Schlosser’s Kunstkammer book,143 though the
question of whether he has been cited more than read remains open.144
Schlosser’s definition of the Kunstkammer may be expanded beyond the limits
that his book set, above all geographically. As studies of Kunstkammern increased,
the notion that such collections were exclusively German or primarily characterized
by Habsburg holdings no longer seemed to hold. Noteworthy among such publications are the essays in The Origins of Museums, which emerged from a symposium
held at Oxford University in 1983.145 A comprehensive investigation of the studiolo
had previously pointed to a type of collection comparable to contemporary northern prototypes.146 Schlosser himself had not ignored examples of sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century collections in Italy where naturalia and mirabilia were to be
found, but he had established firm distinctions between them and collections in
the North. In contrast to Schlosser’s distinctions, another publication that appeared
the same year as did The Origins of Museums (1985) demonstrably applied the term
Wunderkammer to exemplars across Europe, including Italy and the studiolo, and
other books on Italian collections have followed suit.147 Scholarship on French,
Spanish, and other European collections that are contemporary with the Kunstkammer has also burgeoned.148 Within Germany itself, multivolume publications
of inventories, commentaries on collections, and interpretations of Kunstkammern
in several sites have appeared; those relating to Dresden, Munich, and Stuttgart are
especially important.149
Other opinions that Schlosser put forth, especially about Rudolf II’s Kunstkammer, have provoked more debate. Reading the 1607–11 inventory revealed that it did
not simply contain zerstreuter (scattered) and zersplitterten Materialien (fragmented
materials) but was organized according to types of objects. This effectively confirmed
that Kunstkammern other than those of Ferdinand of the Tyrol had an encyclopedic
character. Since Schlosser, the term encyclopedic has been applied to Kunstkammern,
which have been regarded as containing artificialia, naturalia, and scientifica. This
argument explicitly supports the interpretation that the macrocosm of the world was
presented in the microcosm of a collection.150 Schlosser’s view of the Prague collections as a kind of Barnumesque museum of eccentricities divorced from general
scientific and other uses has in general not held.151 While the imperial and other
Kunstkammern may have provided entertainment and contained oddities and exotica, they demonstrably served other purposes as well. A major issue of debate arose
from a misunderstanding about the possibility that collections may have had varying, multiple, and complementary functions.152
As was first suggested in regard to an interpretation of the collections of Rudolf II,
what appeared to be private or recondite could also serve as a vehicle for princely
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self-expression and prestige, even if only for a select audience.153 Other collections
could express their owner’s status, even if the owner was not a prince who might claim
universal authority. While the thesis that the Kunstkammer was a form of representation has been contested, many studies of German Kunstkammern beyond Prague
have supported this interpretation.154 Recent scholarship on earlier seventeenthcentury cameralist (political and economic) thought has pointed to texts that explicitly argued that ownership of a multifarious Kunstkammer was in fact considered to
be a matter of reason of state (Staatsraison, raison d’état, ragione di stato).155
The frequent use of the word Wunderkammer rather than Kunstkammer in
scholarship and popular writing of the past decades raises another point of debate.
Although Schlosser saw how the possession of objects in a Kunstkammer could
lead to insights, he believed that a fundamental break existed between the world of
the Kunst- und Wunderkammer with its appreciation of marvels on one side of the
divide, and the empirical rationality epitomized by the Scientific Revolution and the
Enlightenment on the other. Erwin Panofsky repeated this argument in distinguishing between the world of the Kunstkammer and Kepler on one hand and the orderly
collection associated with Galileo on the other.156 More recent scholars who have
emphasized the singularity of wonders or the marvelous Wunderkammern as leading to stupefaction rather than to insight or increased knowledge have continued this
line of argument.157
Since the early 1980s, it has however become evident that Kunstkammern served
as study collections and as laboratories for experimentation.158 Just as the categories
of nature and artifice were fluid, so might naturalia or artifacts in Kunstkammern be
used for scientific purposes — and technical devices in a variety of Kunstkammern
were demonstrably employed in scientific endeavors. Kepler successfully used telescopes from the Prague and Dresden Kunstkammern to conduct optical experiments
and draw inferences related to his scientific discoveries.159 An interest in natural history may also be associated with many Kunstkammern.160 Paintings like Arcimboldo’s supposedly scurrilous works, singled out as such by Schlosser, may be related
to the methods that characterized the early stages of natural history as a science.
Description was an essential stage in this process, which could involve having naturalia at hand as well as visual representations and descriptive labels— all procedures
similarly linked to the Kunstkammern and with artists and writers associated with
them.161 The interrelation of science, knowledge, and collecting has become a commonplace.162
A fundamental question remains: Has an abrupt break between two periods,
mentalities, worlds, or epistemes (that of the Kunstkammern and that following their
heyday) occurred, and if so, when? While national distinctions no longer provide
acceptable explanations, Schlosser’s distinction between the world of the Kunstkammer and the modern era is still often held by those who believe that the Kunstkammer declined and even ceased to exist by the late seventeenth century, by which time
a truly rational science had fully emerged. Recent research has however demonstrated that even if later (meaning early seventeenth-century) responses to the Kunstkammer are called into account, it is a mistake to disregard the continuing use of
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Kunstkammern in scientific investigation and knowledge formation. Such uses of
the Kunstkammer continued, and may also be associated with the Scientific Revolution, modernity, or the classic era, as different scholars have called them.163 What
Schlosser saw as radically different or conflicting mentalities or eras have come to be
regarded as much less separated from each other.
While we may question the validity of Schlosser’s views today, his range of knowledge remains formidable considering when his text was written. More than that, Die
Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance was a forerunner of many fields
and even sparked the creation of an entirely new field, the history of collections.
Many of Schlosser’s prescient and passing references to authors and topics anticipated fruitful paths for future scholarship.
Concluding Remarks
When almost fifty years ago I asked Ernst Gombrich about Schlosser and art history
in Vienna, he spoke about his teacher’s immense learning.164 But he demurred when
I also asked if works by Viennese art historians should be translated. He replied with
another question: What use could a new edition of the writings of John Dalton have
for present-day nuclear physics?165
I hope that Professor Gombrich might understand that several good reasons now
exist for publishing an English translation of Schlosser’s groundbreaking study of collections. During the past half century, knowledge of foreign languages has declined
precipitously among English speakers as English has become the major global language. To leave Schlosser untranslated would make his books accessible only to those
few English speakers with a solid command of German; otherwise it would be read
at best in translation in other languages or summarized in the context of secondary sources, if at all. However, other translations in the Getty Research Institute’s
Texts and Documents series suggest that a book’s status in the historiography of art
alone provides a justification for translating it.166 The huge and growing bibliography
on Kunstkammern, much of which cites Schlosser, establishes that Die Kunst- und
Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance has become a classic in the historiography of
art and cultural history. While Schlosser’s text does not need to be rescued from
oblivion, yet another argument for its translation is that his interpretations are still
matters for debate. These interpretations may be amended based on their measurement against other criteria, and they may exist independent of their author.
At the same time, the author and his politics as revealed in this book may strike
twenty-first-century readers as problematic and thus provoke discussion. Schlosser
refers, for instance, to the “young cultures” of black kings and to “barbaric” Thrace
with its “awfully mixed population of Orientals and Barbarians.”167 Both of these
statements may be related to common prejudices of the time. The antiquity of cultures below the Sahara was not known before discoveries of the twentieth century,168
and likewise the intertwining of Greeks with peoples of West Asia and Egypt (“Orientals”) and from central Eurasia (“Barbarians”), particularly in Thrace, was not
then known.169 Such notions that may seem inconceivable to readers today could
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not easily be perceived from Schlosser’s standpoint, which as discussed previously
was informed by a traditional and deeply entrenched attitude toward Greek and
Latin classics.
While these prejudices belong to Schlosser’s time, the evidence, albeit slight, for
Schlosser’s membership in the National Socialist party — a photograph of him wearing a Nazi Party pin — is more troublesome. Little is known about why he joined the
party. Could it be, as one writer has suggested, that he was a naive scholar adhering
to the status quo of a new “Reichsdeutsch,” a citizen of the enlarged Third Reich
following the annexation of the Republic of Austria in 1938? Or, as hypothesized
above, could it be that he had little confidence in Austria and saw the creation of
greater Germany as establishing a new Reich akin to the Holy Roman Empire or
Austria-Hungary?
In either case, it has been reported that Schlosser did not have any sympathy for
the authoritarianism and religiously colored politics of the 1930s as represented by
the Austrofascism of the previous regime of Engelbert Dolfuss, whom Nazis assassinated in 1934. Thus it is unlikely that he had any truck with the fascist or, for that
matter, the authoritarian aspects of Hitler’s party.170 Nor, according to anecdotes of
statements Schlosser made in the 1930s, was he a German nationalist.171 While he
may have discussed issues in the racially and nationally tinged terms of the time, he
certainly did not overly favor German culture in Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern
der Spätrenaissance.
Most important, if we take anti-Semitism (and related racist and religious bigotry) as what distinguishes the ideology of Nazism from other fascist and nationalist movements of his time, there is no evidence that Schlosser shared this sort of
bigotry. Many of his students were Jewish (too many for him to protect, in his view);
his favorite student was Ernst Kris, and he actively tried to get a position for Pächt
in pre-Hitler Germany, which he probably naively believed to be less anti-Semitic
than Austria.172
In any case, Schlosser can hardly be lumped together with other Austrian professors like Sedlmayr or Strzygowski, who openly broadcast their anti-Semitism
and were (in the former case, early and long) committed to the Nazi cause.173 Even
though he has been strangely linked with Martin Heidegger,174 who has recently been
called one of the tutelary deities of art history,175 Schlosser’s single ambiguous comment made on a postcard cannot be compared to the ample expression of Heidegger’s
words and ideas.176 Unlike Sedlmayr, Strzygowski, and Heidegger, whose writings
and actions are impossible to extricate from their prejudices, there is no trace of such
fundamental ideas in Schlosser’s publications.177
This brings us back to the question of Schlosser’s anachronism in relation to his
scholarship and politics. The newly coined “anachronic” adopts a definition taken
from an outright assault on the principle of anachronism as an elemental tool of
historical analysis.178 This is but one of the recent antirational, antihumanist, metaor posthistorical, poststructural, and posttruth arguments with which Schlosser’s
wide use of tools, espousal of rationalism, and empirical approach as evinced in
Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance are indeed out of sync. His
35
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erudition, knowledge of languages and sources, philological precision, and empirical
exactness are out of fashion today. In the most recent account of the history of the
discipline of art history, Schlosser earns attention for Die Kunstliteratur but does not
merit much further discussion, in contrast to those “original art historians” who earlier
in the 1930s were sympathetic to the National Socialists.179 Their “poetic” “intuitionism,” even if it unravels into the irrational, is for the same author representative of the
“most creative art and cultural history of the last 100 years,” and evidently more attractive than Schlosser, whom he elsewhere describes as having “lingered” in “damp, halflit recesses.”180 An evident explanation for this neglect of Schlosser is that “empiricist
strictures are difficult to live by.”181
That Schlosser could adhere to such scholarly ethics while supporting a party that
believed in the big lie, that he could follow older social norms while sympathizing with
ideas of modernity, that he could deplore Nazi thuggery as a disgrace of his time182 and
yet join the Nazi Party, remains puzzling. Schlosser’s choice may provide a warning
that slippage into the irrational may not unleash creativity but lead down a dangerously destructive path, as exemplified by the murderous bigotry of the Third Reich.
Schlosser seems already to have had an inkling of some of this danger when in Die
Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance he compared the Kunstkammer as
the epitome of the “German North” to a Germanic witches’ sabbath. Yet, as his apparent party affiliation suggests, he did not fully realize the implications of what was happening in his own place and time, nor did he seek to avert it. And on 15 March 1938,
thirty years after Schlosser wrote his book, Adolf Hitler proclaimed the Anschluss of
Austria into Nazi Germany from the Neue Burg on the Heldenplatz, across the street
from Schlosser’s beloved Kunsthistorisches Museum. Official discrimination against
Jews, whom Schlosser indeed could not protect, began immediately.
In addition to discussing its historical context, contents, and historiographic
importance, I hope that this introduction has evoked some of the relevance of Die
Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance and its author for the twenty-first
century. At the risk of being anachronistic, it is perhaps worthwhile to conclude by
suggesting some of the stakes involved. At a time when democratic institutions and the
rule of law have come once again under attack, racism and religious bigotry are on the
rise, and nationalism and populism are thriving, Schlosser’s book and biography may
remind us that the mere expression of ideals like those he avowed in his study of the
Kunstkammer may not deter the advance of their alternatives.
1.
2.
Notes
See Jean-Louis Sponsel, Das Grüne Gewölbe zu Dresden, 4 vols. (Leipzig: K. W. Hiersemann, 1925–32).
For example, reconstructed Kunstkammern have appeared in the exhibitions The
Splendor of Dresden (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978) and The Age of the Marvelous
(Hood Museum of Art, 1991) and in museums including Schloss Ambras, the Schlossmuseum Gotha, the Wadsworth Athenaeum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the
Walters Art Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, and elsewhere. The revival of interest
in the Kunstkammern and Schlosser’s book and the reactions of contemporary artists
are discussed by Patricia Falguières, postface to Les cabinets d’art et de merveilles de
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A LANDMARK RECONSIDERED
la Renaissance tardive, ed. Patricia Falguières, trans. Lucie Marignac (Paris: Macula,
2012), 266–72.
3. See Jas Elsner, “The Birth of Late Antiquity: Riegl and Strzygowski in 1901,” Art History 25, no. 3 (2002): 358–79.
4. See Helen Hills, ed., Rethinking the Baroque (Burlington: Ashgate, 2011); and Evonne
Levy, Baroque and the Political Language of Formalism (1845–1945): Burckhardt,
Wölfflin, Gurlitt, Brinckmann, Sedlmayr (Basel: Schwabe, 2015). For mannerism, little
that is comprehensive has been published since the 1980s.
5. See Julius von Schlosser, Die Kunstliteratur, ein Handbuch zur Quellenkunde der
neueren Kunstgeschichte (Vienna: A. Schroll, 1924). This work is best known in the
third revised edition of the Italian translation, La letteratura artistica: Manuale delle
fonti della storia dell’arte moderna, ed. Otto Kurz, trans. Filippo Rossi (Florence: La
Nuova Italia, 1964).
6. The best introduction to the subject is supplied by Jules David Prown, Writings on Art
and Material Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
7. The best general bibliography on Aby Warburg is provided by Claudia Wedepohl
in “Aby Warburg,” Oxford Bibliographies, last modified 28 June 2016, https://www
.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199920105/obo-9780199920105
-0087.xml. For the affinity of Warburg to Schlosser, see E. H. Gombrich and Didier
Eribon, A Lifelong Interest: Conversations on Art and Science with Didier Eribon
(London: Thames & Hudson, 1993), 40; and Michael Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser
(1866–1938),” in Klassiker der Kunstgeschichte, ed. Ulrich Pfisterer (Munich: C. H.
Beck, 2007), 194–95.
8. Schlosser specifically called some of these non-Western artifacts schöner (very fine).
See Julius von Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance: Ein
Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sammelwesens (Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1908), 64;
and this volume, 131.
9. Otto Kurz, “Julius von Schlosser: Personalità — Metodo — Lavoro,” Critica d’arte, n.s.
11/12 (1955): 402–19.
10. Falguières, postface to Les cabinets d’art, 266–72; Julius von Schlosser, Raccolte d’arte
e di meraviglie del tardo Rinascimento, trans. Paola di Paolo (Florence: Sansoni, 1974);
and Julius von Schlosser, Las cámaras artísticas y maravillosas del renacimiento tardío,
trans. José Luis Pascual Arranz (Madrid: Akal, 1988).
11. Although a symposium held in Vienna in 2016 celebrated the 150th anniversary of
Schlosser’s birth, Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938): Internationale Tagung zum 150.
Geburtstag, gemeinsam veranstaltet vom Kunsthistorischen Museum Wien und dem
Institut für Kunstgeschichte der Universität Wien (150th Anniversary Conference on
Julius von Schlosser, sponsored by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and the Institute for Art History of the University of Vienna, 6th and 7th October 2016), it remains
to be seen what impact, if any, the eventual publication of its papers will have on his
reputation in the anglophone world in particular.
12. See Wedepohl, “Aby Warburg.”
13. As signaled by Heinrich Wölfflin, Principles of Art History: The Problem of the
Development of Style in Early Modern Art, ed. Evonne Levy and Tristan Weddigen,
trans. Jonathan Blower (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2015). Great interest
in Wölfflin’s work seems to exist in China, where his works have been translated into
Chinese and his books are sold in major museums.
37
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14. See the following recent examples: Piotr Otto Scholz and Magdalena Anna Długosz,
eds., Von Biała nach Wien: Josef Strzygowski und die Kunstwissenschaften; Akten der
internationalen wissenschaftlichen Konferenzen zum 150. Geburtstag von Josef Strzygowski in Bielsko-Biała (Vienna: European University Press, 2015); Maria Männig,
Hans Sedlmayrs Kunstgeschichte: Eine kritische Studie (Cologne: Böhlau, 2017); Levy,
Baroque and the Political Language of Formalism; and Christopher S. Wood, ed., The
Vienna School Reader: Politics and Art Historical Method in the 1930s (New York:
Zone, 2000). For an account of the antagonistic relationship between Schlosser and
Strzygowski, see Eva Frodl-Kraft, “Eine Aporie und der Versuch ihrer Deutung: Josef
Strzygowski — Julius von Schlosser,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 42 (1989):
7–52.
15. In addition to the works by Kurz and Thimann cited above in note 7 and note 9, a
sampling of these texts includes the following: the essays about Schlosser in a special
thematic issue of Kritische Berichte 16, no. 4 (1988); Edwin Lachnit, “Julius von
Schlosser (1866–1938),” in Altmeister Moderner Kunstgeschichte, ed. Heinrich Dilly
(Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1990); Hans H. Aurenhammer, “Zäsur oder Kontinuität?
Das Wiener Kunsthistorische Institut im Ständestaat und im Nationalsozialismus,”
Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 53 (2004): 11–54; Ingrid Ciulisová, “Notes on
the History of Renaissance Scholarship in Central Europe: Białostocki, Schlosser
and Panofsky,” in Renaissance? Perceptions of Continuity and Discontinuity in Europe,
c. 1300–c. 1550, ed. Alexander Lee, Pit Péporté, and Harry Schnitker (Leiden: Brill,
2010), 349–57; Donatella Levi, “Julius von Schlosser tra Riegl e Croce: Appunti
su storia dello stile e storia del linguaggio,” in L’idée du style dans l’historiographie
artistique: Variantes nationalis et transmissions, ed. Sabine Frommel and Antonio
Brucculeri (Rome: Campisano, 2012), 285–97; and Loredana Lorizzo, L’Italia di Julius
von Schlosser (Rome: De Luca, 2018).
16. Exceptions are writings by Karl Johns, Ricardo De Mambro Santos, Christopher
Wood, and Robert Williams. See Karl T. Johns, “Julius Alwin Ritter von Schlosser:
Ein bio-bibliographischer Beitrag,” Kritische Berichte 16, no. 4 (1988): 47–64; Karl
Johns, “Julius von Schlosser and the Need to Reminisce,” Journal of Art Historiography, no. 1 (2009): n.p. (4 pages); Ricardo di Mambro Santos (who previously wrote
on Schlosser in Italian), “The Concentric Critique: Schlosser’s Kunstliteratur and the
Paradigm of Style in Croce and Vossler,” Journal of Art Historiography 1 (2009): n.p.
(16 pages), and “Words of Suspension: The Definition of ‘Written Sources’ in Julius
von Schlosser’s Kunstliteratur,” Journal of Art Historiography 2 (2010): n.p. (14 pages);
Christopher Wood, “Source and Trace,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 63/64
(2013): 5–19; and a forthcoming posthumous essay by Robert Williams. Johns has also
published translations of several works by Schlosser (see, for example, note 20 below).
Johns’s comments on Wood’s treatment of Schlosser and Riegl might also be noted;
see Karl Johns, “A Monumental Step for Riegl and Schlosser in France,” review of
Alois Riegl, Christopher S. Wood, Emmanuel Alloa, L’industrie d’art romaine tardive,
trans. Marielène Weber and Sophie Yersin Legrand (Paris: Macula, 2014); and Julius
von Schlosser, Les cabinets d’art et de merveilles de la Renaissance tardive: Une contribution à l’histoire du collectionnisme, trans. Lucie Marignac, preface and postface by
Patricia Falguières (Paris: Macula, 2012), in Journal of Art Historiography 11 (2014):
n.p. (11 pages).
17. See Wood, The Vienna School Reader. This collection is devoted to writings of the
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1930s, but Schlosser also wrote important essays during this time, and, as suggested
below, there seem to be other reasons why Wood did not include him.
18. Matthew Rampley, The Vienna School of Art History: Empire and the Politics of Scholarship, 1847–1918 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013), 50, 214.
19. Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938),” 207, 209.
20. Julius von Schlosser, Die Wiener Schule von Kunstgeschichte: Rückblick auf ein
Säkulum deutscher Gelehrtenarbeit in Österreich. Mitteilungen des Österreichischen
Instituts für Geschichtsforschung, Ergänzungsband 13, no. 2 (Innsbruck: Wagner,
1934), 145–228. Schlosser’s chronicle is available online in an English translation by
Karl Johns, “Julius von Schlosser, The Vienna School of the History of Art — Review
of a Century of Austrian Scholarship in German (1934),” Journal of Art Historiography, no. 1 (2009): n.p. (50 pages).
21. Kurz, “Julius von Schlosser: Personalità”; Ernst H. Gombrich, “Einige Erinnerungen
an Julius von Schlosser als Lehrer,” Kritische Berichte 16, no. 4 (1988): 10–15 (also published in Italian as “Ricordo di Julius von Schlosser come Maestro,” in Dal mio tempo,
ed. Richard Woodfield (Turin: Einaudi, 1999), 43–51; and Gombrich and Eribon, A
Lifelong Interest, 37–40.
22. The phrase “new art history” seems to be documented first in reference to a conference whose results appeared in print first in Frances Borzello and A. L. Rees, eds., The
New Art History (London: Camden Press, 1986), and Norman Bryson, ed., Calligram:
Essays in New Art History from France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988). See also Jonathan Harris, The New Art History: A Critical Introduction (London: Routledge, 2001), 28n1.
23. See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, “American Voices: Remarks on the Earlier History
of Art History in the United States and the Reception of Germanic Art Historians,”
Ars 42, no. 1 (2009): 128–52; also published in Journal of Art Historiography, no. 2
(2010): 1–35.
24. The interested reader might start with Svetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch
Art in the Seventeenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
25. Michael Podro, “Against Formalism: Schlosser on Stilgeschichte,” in Wien und die
Entwicklung der kunsthistorischen Methode, ed. Hermann Fillitz and Martina Pippal
(Vienna: Böhlau, 1984), 37–43.
26. Michael Podro, The Critical Historians of Art (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1982), 212, 215. See also E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art, 1st ed. (London: Phaidon,
1950.
27. This is the succinct opinion attributed to “Croce and his disciples” by W. Eugene
Kleinbauer, Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of TwentiethCentury Writing on the Visual Arts (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971),
13. Kleinbauer is paraphrasing the first words of Gombrich, The Story of Art, which
is probably the best known book of art history, having sold more than seven million
copies according to the blurb on the cover of the most recent printing.
28. Podro, “Against Formalism,” 37, 42.
29. “Normative” adopts the notion of “normative” science proposed by Thomas S. Kuhn
in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).
30. James S. Ackerman, “Toward a New Social Theory of Art,” New Literary History 4,
no. 2 (1973): 315–30.
31. See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, “What Is New about the ‘New Art History,’” in The
39
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KAUFMANN
Philosophy of the Visual Arts, ed. Philip Alperson (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1992), 515–20. Such qualities were also noted in Ernst Gombrich, “Obituary of Julius
von Schlosser,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 74 (1939): 98–99.
32. Kurz, “Julius von Schlosser: Personalità.”
33. Kurz, “Julius von Schlosser: Personalità,” 402; and Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser
(1866–1938),” 194.
34. Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938)”; and Julius von Schlosser, “Ein Lebenskommentar,” in Die Kunstwissenschaft der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen, ed.
Johannes Jahn (Leipzig: F. Meiner, 1924), 95–134.
35. Falguières, preface to Les cabinets d’art, 50.
36. Falguières, preface to Les cabinets d’art, 8–60.
37. See Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, “Interventions: Toward a New Model
of Renaissance Anachronism,” Art Bulletin 87, no. 3 (2005): 403–15; Alexander Nagel
and Christopher S. Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (New York: Zone, 2010); Wood,
The Vienna School Reader, 31; Wood, “Source and Trace,” 19; and Thomas DaCosta
Kaufmann, “Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance: A Landmark
Reconsidered,” this volume, 50n178 (hereafter cited to as “A Landmark Reconsidered”).
38. See Schlosser, “Ein Lebenskommentar,” 33n.
39. Falguières, preface to Les cabinets d’art, 50–52, 58–60 takes a different tack to the relation of Schlosser to other famous contemporaries.
40. Wood, The Vienna School Reader, 31.
41. A huge bibliography exists on the Habsburgs and Austria-Hungary. For a good, short,
and accessible introduction in English, see Robin Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy
c. 1765–1918: From Enlightenment to Eclipse (New York: St. Martin’s, 2001).
42. Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: Vintage
Books, 2012), offers a vivid account of this development. See also Thomas DaCosta
Kaufmann, “Global Aspects of Habsburg Imperial Collecting,” in Collecting and
Empires, ed. Maia Wellington Gahtan and Eva-Maria Troelenberg (London: Harvey
Miller, 2019), 162–81.
43. Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe’s History (London: Penguin, 2017), is the authoritative book in English on this topic. Wilson also
supplies a concise introduction to the aftermath of the empire, discussed here.
44. Information on Schlosser’s biography is supplied first by himself, in “Ein Lebenskommentar.” See also Hans Tietze, “Julius Schlosser zum 60. Geburtstag am 23.
September 1926,” Belvedere 9/10, no. 11 (1926): 167–72; Lachnit, “Julius von Schlosser”;
and Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938).” There are, however, many other
bibliographical accounts, and some analyses of his work as indicated in the bibliography compiled in Friedrich Polleroß, ed., Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938): Ausstellung
anlässlich der Tagung zum 150. Geburtstag (Vienna: Institut für Kunstgeschichte der
Universität Wien, 2016), 2–4.
45. See Lorizzo, L’Italia di Julius von Schlosser.
46. Schorske, Fin-de-siècle Vienna, provides an excellent introduction. Historians of
post–Second World War Austria have likewise called attention to the ways that similar
conflicts of modern and antimodern existed even after World War II, when liberal
and socialist opinions were confronted by continuing antidemocratic and anti-Semitic
tendencies. See Alexander Pinwinkler and Thomas Weidenholzer, eds., Schweigen
und erinnern: Das Problem Nationalsozialismus nach 1945 (Salzburg: Stadtarchiv and
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Statistik, 2016); and Gert Kerschbaumer and Karl Müller, Begnadet für das Schöne: Der
rot-weiss-rote Kulturkampf gegen die Moderne (Vienna: Gesellschaftskritik, 1992).
47. The annexation (Anschluss) of Austria occurred on March 12, 1938; Schlosser died
on 1 December. The issue of the viability of Austria is tied up with the question of
why Schlosser may have become a member of the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), discussed further at the end of this essay. See, for the evidence of Schlosser’s membership in the party, Thomas Lersch, “Schlosser schreibt an
Vossler: Notizen zu einer Gelehrtenfreundschaft,” Kritische Berichte 16, no. 4 (1988):
16–23; reprinted under the same title in Kritische Berichte 17, no. 1 (1989): 39–55, in
particular 47. See Lersch, “Schlossers Hakenkreuz: Eine Replik,” Kritische Berichte 18,
no. 4 (1990): 113–17. See also Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938),” 197.
48. This distinction has continued to create confusion as far as the definition of the
region is concerned. For this issue of nomenclature, see Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann,
(Ost-)Mitteleuropa als Kunstgeschichtsregion? (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag,
2006), with further references.
49. Robert John Weston Evans, Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs: Essays on Central
Europe, c. 1683–1867 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), is particularly strong
on the events and situation leading up to 1867.
50. See Karl Möseneder, Franz Anton Maulbertsch: Aufklärung in der barocken Deckenmalerei (Vienna: Böhlau, 1993). For the features of the Piarist church here discussed,
see Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Painterly Enlightenment: The Art of Franz Anton
Maulbertsch, 1724–1796 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005).
51. See Johns, “Julius von Schlosser, The Vienna School of the History of Art,” n.p.
52. Julius von Schlosser, Moderne Märchen: Kleine Skizzen (Leipzig: Albert Unflad, 1887).
53. For example, Julius von Schlosser, Die Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente: Beschreibendes Verzeichnis (Vienna: Schroll, 1920). See also Julius von Schlosser, Kleiner
Führer durch die Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente (Vienna: A. Schroll, 1922).
54. Julius von Schlosser, Präludien, Vorträge und Aufsätze (Berlin: J. Bard, 1927).
55. See Oskar Kokoschka, Mein Leben, ed. Remigius Netzer (Munich: Bruckmann, 1971),
46. For more on Kokoschka and Maulbertsch, see the foreword to Kaufmann, Painterly Enlightenment.
56. Ernst Goldschmidt, “Maulbertschstudien: Zu seinen Altar- und Andachtsbildern”
(PhD diss., University of Vienna, 1931); the dissertation remained unpublished but
has been cited in later publications.
57. Hans Tietze, “Programme und Entwürfe zu den grossen österreichischen Barockfresken,” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses
30 (1911): 1–28. See also Max Dvořák, Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der barocken
Deckenmalerei in Wien (Vienna: Hölzel, 1920). Schlosser devoted a separate section
to Dvořák in Die Wiener Schule von Kunstgeschichte; see Kaufmann, “A Landmark
Reconsidered,” this volume, 39n20.
58. Information on the courses Schlosser taught mentioned here and subsequently in this
essay is taken from the very useful compilation of materials by Johns, “Schlosser: Ein
bio-bibliographischer Beitrag,” 61–62.
59. Gombrich and Eribon, A Lifelong Interest, 34.
60. See Polleroß, Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938), 5.
61. See Johns, “Schlosser: Ein bio-bibliographischer Beitrag,” 47.
62. These remarks are taken from Schlosser’s “Ein Lebenskommentar” and Johns, “Julius
41
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KAUFMANN
von Schlosser, The Vienna School of the History of Art.” See also Gombrich’s comment
on Schlosser in Gombrich and Eribon, A Lifelong Interest, 39.
63. Schlosser, “Ein Lebenskommentar,” and Johns, “Julius von Schlosser, The Vienna
School of the History of Art.” See also Gombrich and Eribon, A Lifelong Interest, 39.
64. Julius von Schlosser, “Die Ordo Farfensis und die Klosteranlage des frühen Abendlande” (PhD diss., University of Vienna, 1888).
65. Schlosser, Die Kunstliteratur.
66. Julius von Schlosser Magnino, “Typare und Bullen in der Münz, Medaillen und
Antikensammlung des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen
Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 13 (1892): 37–54.
67. Julius von Schlosser, Beschreibung der altgriechischen Münzen (Vienna: A. Holzhausen,
1893); Julius von Schlosser, “Die Entwicklung der Medaille,” Numismatische Zeitschrift
26 (1894): 321–46; Julius von Schlosser, “Elfenbeinsättel des ausgehenden Mittelalters,”
Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 15 (1894): 1:
260–94; Julius von Schlosser, “Die ältesten Medaille und die Antike,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 18 (1897): 64–108; and Julius
von Schlosser, “Nachträge zur Abhandlung: Die ältesten Medaille und die Antike,”
Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 19 (1898):
352–53.
68. These matters are discussed at length by Schlosser in “Ein Lebenskommentar” and in
Johns, “Julius von Schlosser, The Vienna School of the History of Art.”
69. Schlosser, “Ein Lebenskommentar”; Johns, “Julius von Schlosser, The Vienna School of
the History of Art”; and Gombrich and Eribon, A Lifelong Interest, 39. For Schlosser as
a teacher see note 21, and for his inspiration especially Kurz, “Julius von Schlosser: Personalità.” The first publication by Gombrich grew out of a seminar report: Ernst Gombrich, “Eine verkannte Karolingische Pyxis im Wiener Kunsthistorischen Museum,”
Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, n.s., 7 (1933): 1–14.
70. Johns, “Julius von Schlosser, The Vienna School of the History of Art,” discusses the
reasons for this decision. Johns, “Schlosser: Ein bio-bibliographischer Beitrag,” gives a
full record of the courses he offered.
71. Jan Białostocki, “Museum Work and History in the Development of the Vienna
School,” in Fillitz and Pippal, Wien und die Entwicklung der kunsthistorischen Methode,
14.
72. Białostocki, “Museum Work and History in the Development of the Vienna School,” 14.
73. Johns, “Schlosser: Ein bio-bibliographischer Beitrag,” 47.
74. Johns, “Schlosser: Ein bio-bibliographischer Beitrag,” 47.
75. For which the evidence is discussed in note 47. This issue is discussed at the end of this
essay.
76. Julius von Schlosser, “Ein Veroneser Bilderbuch und die höfische Kunst des 14. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses
16 (1895): 1–86. See also Julius von Schlosser, “Die höfische Kunst des Abendlandes in
byzantinischer Beleuchtung,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 17, no. 3 (1896): 441–56.
77. For the problem of national categorizations and alternatives to them, see Thomas
DaCosta Kaufmann, Toward a Geography of Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2004).
78. See Schlosser’s remarks on page 57 of this volume and in the preface to the second
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edition of Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance: Ein Beitrag zur
Geschichte des Sammelwesens (Braunschweig: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1978), vii.
79. This is discussed in the Note on the Edition, this volume, ix.
80. This information is drawn from the most recent biographies of the archduke: Václav
Bůžek, Ferdinand Tyrolský mezi Prahou a Innspruckem: Šlechta z českých zemí na
cestě ke dvorům prvních Habsburků (Česke Budĕjovice: Jihočeská Universita, 2006),
and Michael Forcher, Erzherzog Ferdinand II. Landesfürst von Tirol: Sein Leben, Sene
Herrschaft, Sein Land (Vienna: Haymon, 2017).
81. See Wilfried Seipel, ed., Die Entdeckung der Natur: Naturalien in den Kunstkammern
des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, exh. cat. (Vienna: Schloss Ambras, 2006).
82. Although Schlosser regarded it as anonymous, Elisabeth Scheicher, Die Kunst- und
Wunderkammern der Habsburger, ed. Christian Brandstatter (Vienna: Molden, 1979),
6, fig. 7 already indicated that it bears a signature of Francesco Segala, a well-known
sculptor in wax (see note 84).
83. Julius von Schlosser, Album ausgewählter Gegenstande der kunstindustriellen Sammlung des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses (Vienna: Schroll, 1901).
84. Published in German originally as Julius von Schlosser, “Geschichte der Porträtbildnerei in Wachs: Ein Versuch,” Jahrbuch des kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, 29 (1911): 171–258.
85. As happened in Munich, Prague, or Vienna, where Leopold Wilhelm’s collections
were placed in the seventeenth century in an upper floor in the Stallburg. See Herbert
Karner, ed., Die Wiener Hofburg 1521–1705: Baugeschichte, Funktion und Etablierung als
Kaiserresidenz (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014), 294–310.
86. For Joris Hoefnagel’s drawing (after which a print was made) of Innsbruck and Schloss
Ambras, containing the designation “musaeum,” see Sabine Haag and Veronika Sandbichler, eds., Ferdinand II: 450 Years Sovereign Ruler of Tyrol; Jubilee Exhibition, exh.
cat. (Innsbruck: Haymon, 2017), 223.
87. See Ortwin Gamber and Alfred Auer, Die Rüstkammern (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches
Museum, 1981).
88. Schlosser himself outlines some of this later history in Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 40–42; this volume, 100–101. A succinct account has recently
been offered by Veronika Sandbichler, “ ‘Souil schönen, kostlichen und verwunderlichen zeügs, das ainer vil monat zu schaffen hette, alles recht zu besichtigen vnd zu
contemplieren’: Die Kunst- und Wunderkammer Erzherzog Ferdinands II. auf Schloss
Ambras,” in Das Haus Habsburg und die Welt der fürstlichen Kunstkammern im 16.
und 17. Jahrhundert, ed. Sabine Haag, Franz Kirchweger, and Paulus Rainer (Vienna:
Holzhausen, 2015), 186 (full essay ranges 167–93). The best recent scholarly accounts
of other aspects of Ambras are offered in Thomas Kuster, “Das Kaiserzimmer,” in
All’Antica: Götter und Helden auf Schloss Ambras, ed. Sabine Haag (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum, 2011), 59–63; Margot Rauch, “Alla spagnola oder all’antica? Der
Spanische Saal von Schloss Ambras,” in All’Antica, 44–52; and Gamber and Auer, Die
Rüstkammern.
89. See Alphons Lhotsky, Die Geschichte der Sammlungen, vol. 2 of idem, Festschrift des
Kunsthistorischen Museums zur fünfzigjährigen Bestandes Feier (Vienna: Berger,
1941–45), 618.
90. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, fig. 24; this volume,
fig. 24.
43
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KAUFMANN
91. Julius von Schlosser, Das Salzfass des Benvenuto Cellini (Vienna: Bard, 1921).
92. See Beatrix Kriller-Erdrich, Julius Victor Berger und die Mäzene des Hauses Habsburg:
Ein Bilddenkmal zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Habsburgischen Sammlungen (Vienna:
Kunsthistorisches Museumsverband, 2016), 6.
93. Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938),” 200.
94. Cited in David Ritter von Schönherr, ed., “Urkunden und Regesten aus dem k.k.
Statthalterei-Archiv in Innsbruck. Fortsetzung,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 17 (1896): 2: 1, reg. no. 14035.
95. Cited in Hans von Voltelini, ed., “Urkunden und Regesten aus dem k. u. k. Haus, Hof
und Staats-archiv in Wien,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 15 (1894): 2: 126–29, no. 12197.
96. Voltelini, “Urkunden und Regesten,” 2: 126–29, no. 12197.
97. Schlosser, “Elfenbeinsättel des ausgehenden Mittelalters,” 1: 260–94.
98. Wendelin Boeheim, ed., “Urkunden und Regesten aus der k.k. Hofbibliothek. Fortsetzung,” Jahrbuch de kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 7
(1888), 2: no. 5556, fol. 247r (CCLVIII) and fol. 347r (CCLXXIX).
99. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 46; this volume, 104.
100. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 140n40; this volume,
208–09n40.
101. “Inventari weylandt Fst. Dht. Erzehog Feredinande zu Österreich etca. lobseligister
gedechtnuß Vernussen unnd mobilien,” Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Kunstkammer, inv. no. KK 6652. The author can attest that the old inventories were still being
used and available in the offices of the Sammlung für Plastik und Kunstgewerbe in the
1970s. In 2020, this copy of the inventory (see note 98 for another) was being prepared
for publication by Thomas Kuster.
Franz Kirchweger, “Die Schätze des Hauses Habsburg und die Kunstkammer.
Ihre Geschichte und ihre Bestände,” in Sabine Haag and Franz Kirchweger, eds., Die
Kunstkammer. Die Schätze der Habsburger (Vienna: Brandstätter, 2012), 12–14, presents
the history of “Das Kunsthistorische Museum und seine Kunstkammer” in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with an explanation for the renaming of this part of the
museum’s collection as Kunstkammer in 1990. Although he does not specifically cite
Schlosser in this regard, it is hard to imagine that the Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern
book and his activity in the museum do not lie behind some of the historical recognition of this nomenclature.
102. For example (and with its Latin equivalent), in The First Treatise on Museums: Samuel
Quiccheberg’s Inscriptiones, 1565, trans. Mark A. Meadow and Bruce Robertson (Los
Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2013).
103. Jacob Schrenck von Nozing, Avgvstissmorvm Imperatorvm, Serenissimorvm Regvm
Atqve Archidvcvm, Illvstrissimorvm Principvm . . . Verissimae Imagines, & Rerum ab Ips
is . . . Gestarum . . . Descriptiones, Qvorvm Arma . . . à Serenissimo Principe Ferdinando
Archiduce Austriæ . . . Conquisita . . . in Celebri Ambrosianæ Arcis Armamentario . . . Non
Procul Ciuitate Oenipontana . . . Conspiciuntur (Innsbruck: Bauer, 1601), is the first Latin
edition; a German edition appeared in 1603; Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 44 (this volume, 101), refers to an edition that appeared in
1593. [This 1593 edition could not be verified. –Ed.]
104. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 73–76 (this volume,
143–44), discusses Quiccheberg (for which see note 102 above), for example.
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105. To name a few, Gustav Klemm, Zur Geschichte der Sammlungen für Wissenschaft und
Kunst in Deutschland, 2nd ed. (Zerbst, Germany: Kummer, 1838); Josef Svátek, “Die
Rudolfinische Kunstkammer in Prag,” in Kulturhistorische Bilder aus Böhmen (Vienna:
W. Braumüller, 1879), 225–72; and Heinrich Zimmermann, “Die Renaissance,” in Kunstgeschichtliche Charakterbilder aus Österreich-Ungarn, ed. Albert Ilg (Prague: F. Tempsky
& Leipzig, 1893), 194–230.
106. Paulus Rainer, “Facetten Habsburgischen Sammelwesens betrachtet anhand des
Bestandes der Kunstkammer und der Schatzkammer des Kunsthistorischen Museums
Wien” (PhD diss., University of Vienna, 2017). I am grateful to Dr. Rainer for sharing
this unpublished work with me.
107. Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 42, 142n58; this volume, 209n44.
108. See, for example, George R. Agassiz, “Mars as Seen in the Lowell Refractor,” Popular
Science Monthly 71 (1907): 275–82. In an email of 4 February 2018, Anthony Grafton suggested to me a thought on the meaning of 1907 as a Marsjahr: “Astronomers
observed and photographers and artists depicted the big areas of blue-green that
develop in the Martian summer. A Wunder, surely, and much talked about at that
time.” Although I have not been able to find reference to these observations, I am grateful to Professor Grafton for putting me on the track of contemporary debates about
observations of Mars.
109. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 1; this volume, 59.
110. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 1; this volume, 59.
111. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 9; this volume, 59–60.
112. And such references are not always felicitous; for example, Odysseus, Homer’s andra
polytropon in Greek, literally a man of many of twists and turns, is rendered by
Schlosser in German as der Vielgeübte, meaning “much practiced.”
113. For instance, he refers to the Greek Odysseus as speaking “Schifferlatein (patois).”
114. Ernst Gombrich, “Obituary of Julius von Schlosser,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 74, no. 431 (1939): 98.
115. Roland Barthes, Le plaisir du texte (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973).
116. Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938),” 195.
117. Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 22; this volume, 69–71.
118. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 23–32; this volume,
80–92.
119. Kurz, “Julius von Schlosser: Personalità ,” 402; and Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser
(1866–1938),” 194.
120. It is remarkable that Schlosser knew of this inventory in manuscript form; it has now
been published as Die Münchner Kunstkammer, ed. Dorothea Diemer et al., 3 vols.
(Munich: C. H. Beck, 2008).
121. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 73; this volume, 143.
122. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 76; this volume, 144.
123. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 80, 142n58; this volume, 147. The work to which Schlosser refers, without citing it directly as his source for
the Barnum comment, is Svátek, “Die Rudolfinische Kunstkammer,” 227.
124. See the recent review of this issue in Falguières, postface to Les cabinets d’art, 299–300.
125. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 88; this volume, 153. I
have discussed Arcimboldo’s relation to the Kunstkammer and Schlosser’s interpretation often, for example, in Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Arcimboldo: Visual Jokes,
45
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Natural History, and Still-Life Painting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
126. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 90; this volume, 159.
127. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 116; this volume, 162.
128. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 104, 106; this volume,
162.
129. This volume, 172, 174. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance,
104: “Einmal is nämlich die hohe Schätzung der in unserem Sinne künstlerischen Form
diesem ältesten unten den abendländischen Kulturvölkern zu tief eingewürzelt, als daß
es an jenen verkünstelten Häufung monströsen Sachen mehr als ein Vorübergehende
Geschmack hätte gewinnen können. Denn ist es dem klaren, bei allem Temperament
nüchternen und praktischen Sinn des Volkes, bei dem die Mathematik als nationale
Wissenschaft angesprochen werden darf die romantische Hexen- und Teufelsküche wie
die ganze spükhafte Abenteuerlichkeit des Nordens in der Seele zuwider gewesen; und
derart war es stets auf reichliche Scheidung des Wissenswerten bedacht.”
130. For example, Walter Holzhausen, “Lage und Rekonstruktion der kurfürstlichen Kunstkammer in Schloss zu Dresden,” Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 48, no. 3 (1927):
140–47; Johannes Neuhardt, Salzburgs Alte Schatzkammer (Salzburg: Salzburger Domkapitel, 1967); and Franz Adrian Dreier, “Zur Geschichte der Kasseler Kunstkammer,”
Zeitschrift des Vereins fur hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde 72 (1961): 123–42.
131. Lhotsky, Geschichte der Sammlungen.
132. Luciano Berti, Il principe dello Studiolo: Francesco I. dei Medici e la fine del Rinascimento fiorentino (Florence: Edam, 1967).
133. Barbara Jean Balsiger, “The Kunst- und Wunderkammern: A Catalogue Raisonné of
Collecting in Germany, France, and England, 1565–1750” (PhD diss., 2 vols., University
of Pittsburgh, 1970); however, it is based entirely on printed sources.
134. Werner Fleischhauer, Die Geschichte der Kunstkammer der Herzöge von Württemberg in
Stuttgart (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1976).
135. Eva Link, Die landgrafliche Kunstkammer (Kassel: Hessische Brandversicherungsanstalt, 1975); Joachim Menzhausen, Dresdener Kunstkammer und Grünes Gewölbe
(Vienna: Tusch, 1977); and The Splendor of Dresden, Five Centuries of Art Collecting: An
Exhibition from the State Art Collections of Dresden, German Democratic Republic (New
York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978).
136. Rotraud Bauer and Herbert Haupt, “Das Kunstkammerinventar Kaiser Rudolfs II.,
1607–1611,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 72 (1976): 11–191.
137. Erwin Neumann, “Das Inventar der rudolfinischen Kunstkammer von 1607–11,” in
Queen Christina of Sweden Documents and Studies (Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Söner,
1966), 262–65. For one response to the implications of the inventory, see Thomas
DaCosta Kaufmann, “The Kunstkammer as a Form of Representation: Remarks on
the Collections of Rudolf II,” Art Journal 28, no. 1 (1978): 22–28; republished in Donald
Preziosi and Claire Farago, eds., Grasping the World (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 526–37.
138. Elisabeth Scheicher, ed., Die Kunstkammer: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien (Vienna:
Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1977).
139. Scheicher, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Habsburger.
140. Kaufmann, “A Landmark Reconsidered,” this volume, 43n78.
141. This estimate is based on the titles listed in the combined libraries of the German
research institutes, Kubikat. More than twenty times the number of publications have
appeared during the last forty years than during the preceding sixty years.
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142. Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor, introduction to The Origins of Museum:. The
Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe, ed. Oliver Impey
and Arthur MacGregor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 4.
143. Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938),” 207, 209.
144. Falguières, preface to Les Cabinets d’art, 60.
145. Impey and Macgregor, Origins of Museums.
146. Wolfgang Liebenwein, Studiolo: Die Entstehung eines Raumtyps und seine Entwicklung
bis um 1600 (Berlin: Gebrüder Mann, 1977).
147. Adalgisa Lugli, Naturalia et mirabilia: Il collezionismo enciclopedico nelle Wunderkammern d’Europa (Milan: G. Mazzotta, 1983). See also Vincenzo Abbate, ed.,
Wunderkammer siciliana: Alle origini del museo perduto (Naples: Electa, 2001). The
important work by Giuseppe Olmi, whose major essays are compiled in L’inventario
del mondo: Catalogazione della natura e luoghi del sapere nella prima età moderna
(Bologna: Mulino, 1992), is also noteworthy.
148. For example, Antoine Schnapper, Le géant, la licorne, et. la tulipe: Histoire et histoire
naturelle, vol. 1 of Collections et collectionneurs dans la France du XVIIe siècle (Paris:
Flammarion, 1988); and Fernando Checa Cremades, ed., Los inventarios de Carlos V y
la familia imperial, 3 vols. (Madrid: Fernando Villaverde, 2010).
149. Die Kunstkammer der Herzöge von Württemberg: Bestand, Geschichte, Kontext, 3 vols.
(Stuttgart: Landesmuseum Württemberg, 2017); Diemer et al., Die Münchner Kunstkammer, Dirk Syndram, Martina Minning, and Jochen Vötsch, eds., Die kurfürstlichsächsische Kunstkammer in Dresden, 5 vols. (Dresden: Sandstein, 2010–12); and
Barbara Marx, ed., Sehen und Staunen: Die Dresdner Kunstkammer von 1640 (Berlin:
Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2014), are representative of a host of other literature on major
collections in these and other sites.
150. Representative collections of essays, containing a wide variety of topics related to
this topos, are contained in Ellinoor Bergvelt and Renée Kistemaler, eds., De Wereld
binnen handbereik: Nederlands kunst- en rariteitenverzamelingen, 1585–1735, 2 vols.
(Amsterdam: Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 1992), and Andreas Grote, ed., Macrocosmos in Microcosmo: Die Welt in der Stube; Zur Geschichte des Sammelns, 1450 bis
1800 (Opladen, Germany: Leske & Budrich, 1994).
151. An exception is Lorraine Daston, “The Factual Sensibility,” Isis 79, no. 3 (1988): 452–
70. As observed in the volume cited in note 152, this point of view depends more on
an interpretation of the seventeenth century, does not engage with actual inventories,
and misreads a secondary interpretation. Its reading of sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Kunstkammern, collecting, and their relation to science is also challenged in
essays on cameralism and science by Vera Keller, “Mining Tacitus: Secrets of Empire,
Nature and Art in the Reason of State,” British Journal for the History of Science 45,
no. 2 (June 2012): 189–212; Keller, “Storied Objects, Scientific Objects, and Renaissance
Experiment: The Case of Malleable Glass,” Renaissance Quarterly 70, no. 2 (Summer
2017): 594–632; and in Keller’s book on Johann Daniel Major (in progress at the time
of writing).
152. See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, The Mastery of Nature: Aspects of Art, Science, and
Humanism in the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 174–94.
153. First suggested in Kaufmann, “The Kunstkammer as a Form of Representation.”
154. Arguments that contest this reading of Rudolf II’s Kunstkammer have been mounted
by Antoine Schnapper, “The King of France as a Collector in the Seventeenth
47
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KAUFMANN
Century,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17, no. 1 (1986): 185–202; and repeatedly
by Eliška Fučíková, for example, in “The Collection of Rudolf II at Prague: Cabinet of
Curiosities or Scientific Museum?,” in Impey and MacGregor, The Origins of Museums, 50–51; see also Beket Bukovinská, most recently “Die Kunstkammer Rudolfs
II. — Entstehung, Niedergang, Wiederentdeckung,” in Das Haus Habsburg und die
Welt der fürstlichen Kunstkammern im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, ed. Sabine Haag, Franz
Kirchweger, and Paulus Rainer (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum, 2015), 233. Those
that implicitly accept this reading of Rudolf II’s collection and discuss the representative functions of collections at various courts include Friedrich Polleroß, “ ‘Kayserliche
Schatz- und Kunstkammer’: Die habsburgischen Sammlungen und ihre Öffenlichtkeit
im 17. Jahrhundert,” in Haag, Kirschweger, and Rainer, Das Haus Habsburg, 255–95;
Katharine Pilaski Kaliadros, The Munich Kunstkammer: Art, Nature, and the Representation of Knowledge in Courtly Contexts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013); Elisabeth Tiller,
“Räume, Raumordnungen und Repräsentation: Dresden und seine Kunstkammer als
Exempel frühneuzeitlicher Fürstensammlungen (1560–1630),” in Kunst und Repräsentation am Dresdner Hof, ed. Barbara Marx (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2005), 40–71;
and many more.
155. See Vera Keller, Knowledge and the Public Interest, 1575–1725 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2015), 101–2; “Mining Tacitus,” 196; and her talk “Jakob Bornitz and
the Cameralists’ Kunstkammer,” which was presented at the symposium “Prudence,
Techne, and the Practice of Good Governance in the Early Modern Kunstkammer,” Bard
Graduate Center, New York, New York, 12 April 2019, and in which Professor Keller
adduced some more primary texts to this point. See also Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann,
“Artes ante Bellum: The Arts in (Chiefly Central) Europe before the Thirty Years War,”
forthcoming in Bellum et Artes, ed. Susanne Jaeger and Claudia Brink (Leipzig: GWZO,
2020).
156. See Erwin Panofsky, Galileo as Critic of the Arts (Leiden: M. Nijhoff, 1954); and his
“Galileo as Critic of the Arts: Aesthetic Attitude and Scientific Thought,” Isis 147, no. 1
(1956): 3–15. Pertinent to this point, and determinative, is the remark made by Jakob
Bornitz, Tracatus Politicus De Rerum Sufficientia (Frankurt: Tampach, 1625), 229, chap.
CXII, “De Technicothecis Principum/Fürstliche Kunstkammer”: Ad magificentiam
suam declarandam solent Principes artificiorum mechanicorum studiosi, Technicothecas
Kunstkammern/extruere & spectatoribus spectanda praebere mira & insolentia manus
opera (Princes devoted to mechanical artifice should construct Kunstkammern to show
their magnificence and to offer wonderful and strange works of the hand to be beheld
to observers).
157. See Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750
(New York: Zone, 1998).
158. Eliška Fučíková, “Die Kunstkammer und Galerie Kaiser Rudolfs II. als eine Studiensammlung,” in Der Zugang zum Kunstwerk: Die Republik der Niederlande, ed. Herman
Fillitz and Martina Pippal (Vienna: Böhlau, 1986), 53–56; Fučíková, “The Collection
of Rudolf II,”47–53; Olmi, L’inventario del mondo; and the ongoing research of Pamela
Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2015). Again, this is but a sampling of the literature.
159. For example, Kaufmann, Mastery of Nature, 189–93; Sven Dupré and Michael Korey,
“Inside the Kunstkammer: The Circulation of Optical Knowledge and Instruments at
the Dresden Court,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science Part A 40, no. 4
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(2009): 405–20; and Michael Korey, The Geometry of Power: Mathematical Instruments
and Princely Mechanical Devices from around 1600 in the MathematischPhysikalischer Salon (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2007).
160. See Klaus Thalheim, “Minerale, Gesteine und Fossilien in der Dresdner Kunstkammer”;
and Clara Stefen, “Zur Geschichte der zoologischen Sammlung und ihrer Bedeutung,”
in Syndram and Minning, Die kurfürstlich-sächsische Kunstkammer in Dresden, 263–81,
283–91; for Vienna and Prague and Arcimboldo, Kaufmann, Arcimboldo; and more
recently “Las metamorfosis de la naturaleza de Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Una nueva
visión,” in La era de genios: De Miguel Ángel a Arcimboldo, ed. F. Calvo Serraller (Barcelona: Crítica, Círculo de Lectores, 2018), 165–94.
161. See Brian W. Ogilvie, The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); and Sachiko Kusukawa, Picturing the
Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth-Century Human Anatomy and
Medical Botany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).
162. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New
York: Vintage Books, 1970). Falguières, postface to Les cabinets d’art, 268, suggests that
the first pages of Foucault had an impact on the reception of Schlosser in the form of
the exhibition Wunderkammer organized by Adalgisa Lugli for the XLII Esposizione
internazionale d’arte la Biennale di Venezia, 1986.
163. As is argued by Vera Keller in her book in progress on Johann Daniel Major, adumbrated in (see note 155) “Prudence, Techne, and the Practice of Good Governance in
the Early Modern Kunstkammer,” in contrast with Daston and Park, Wonders.
164. Conversations with the author, 1970–72.
165. Conversations with the author, 1970–72.
166. Paolo Prodi, introduction to Discourse on Sacred and Profane Images, by Gabriele Paleotti, trans. William McCuaig (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2012), 1.
167. Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, 2, 9; this volume,
60, 66.
168. Ancient African civilizations below the Sahara were first presented to a wider Anglophone public in Steffen Wenig, ed., African in Antiquity: The Arts of Ancient Nubia
and the Sudan, 2 vols. (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1978) and most recently
in Alisa LaGamma, ed., Sahel. Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara (New York:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2020).
169. See Joan Aruz, Sarah B. Graff, and Yelena Rakic, eds., Assyria to Iberia: At the Dawn of
the Classical Age (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015); Jeffrey Spier, Timothy
Potts, and Sara E. Cole, ed., Beyond the Nile. Egypt and the Classical World (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2018); John Boardman, The Greeks in Asia (London: Thames
and Hudson, 2015); and Z. H. Archibald, The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace: Orpheus
Unmasked (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).
170. On the former point, see Gombrich, “Einige Erinnerungen,” 8; on the latter, see Thimann, “Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938),” 197.
171. Gombrich, “Einige Erinnerungen,” 8.
172. Gombrich, “Einige Erinnerungen,” 8–9.
173. For Sedlmayr’s self-description as a “political anti-Semite,” see Evonne Levy, “Sedlmayr
and Schapiro correspond, 1930–1935,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 59, no. 1
(2010): 235–64. For his own avowal of his inability to conclude his work because of the
appearance of Hitler (Sedlmayr concludes his essay “Heil Hitler”) on the Heldenplatz
49
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KAUFMANN
in Vienna on what Sedlmayr described as the greatest day in German history since the
time of the Salian emperors, namely the proclamation of the Greater German Reich
with the annexation of Austria, see Hans Sedlmayr, “Vermutungen und Fragen zur
Bestimmung der altfranzösischen Kunst,” in Festschrift Wilhelm Pinder zum sechzigsten
Geburtstage (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1938), 9–27. For a convincing treatment of Sedlmayr’s long adherence to Nazism, which he later tried to deny and which has long been
suppressed, see Männig, Sedlmayrs Kunstgeschichte (as in Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann,
“A Landmark Reconsidered,” this volume, 38n14). For Strzygowski’s nationalism and
anti-Semitism, see Margaret Rose Olin, The Nation without Art: Examining Modern
Discourses on Jewish Art (London: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 18–24. Also see
in his own words Josef Strzygowski, Europas Machtkunst im Rahmen des Erdkreises
(Vienna: Wiener Verlagsgesellschaft, 1941), in particular 19, 741.
174. See Wood, “Source and Trace,” 15, 16.
175. Christopher S. Wood, A History of Art History (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2019), 334.
176. Schlosser’s only apparent expression of adherence to Hitler was the conventional closing greeting Schlosser wrote on a postcard, “Heil Hitler.” This phrase appears immediately after he refers to his friend Aby Warburg, who was forced into exile by Hitler’s
regime, and it remains unresolved whether Schlosser was aware of the ironic juxtaposition or even intended it. It is possible that Schlosser was safeguarding himself and proving his loyalty, since his postcard was sent to Italy and could have been read by censors.
See Gombrich, “Einige Erinnerungen,” 9.
177. For Sedlmayr and Strzygowski, see note 173. The discovery, publication, and translation of Heidegger’s own notes confirm that Heidegger’s anti-Semitism and Nazism
were inextricable from his “philosophical” utterances; see Andrew J. Mitchell and Peter
Trawny, eds., Heidegger’s Black Notebooks: Responses to Anti-Semitism (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2017).
178. Nagel and Wood, Anachronic Renaissance, 370n18; Nagel and Wood explicitly invoke
Jacques Rancière’s essay “Le concept de l’anachronisme et la vérité de l’historien,”
L’inactuel: Psychanalyse & Culture 6 (1996): 53–68, which is a conscious and explicit
assault on Lucien Febvre, Le problème de l’incroyance au XVIe siècle: La religion de
Rabelais (Paris: A. Michel, 1947). Nagel and Wood offer a strong argument in favor of
the application of the principle of historical anachronism, though the idea of linear
temporality that they advance is overly simplified; see Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann,
“Reflections on World Art History,” in Circulations in the Global History of Art, ed.
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Catherine Dossin, and Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel (Farnham:
Ashgate, 2015), 23–45.
179. Wood, A History of Art History, 330.
180. Wood, The Vienna School Reader, 35, 46, 31, respectively; the description of Schlosser
having “lingered” appears in Wood, “Source and Trace,” 19; the description of Schlosser’s invocation of Philipp Otto Runge at the end of Die Kunstliteratur as “indulging in a
kind of academic death wish” appears in Wood, A History of Art History, 197.
181. Wood, The Vienna School Reader, 46.
182. As reported by Gombrich, “Einige Erinnerungen,” 8.
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51
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Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol, ca. 1575.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.
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ART AND CURIOSITY
CABINETS OF THE
LATE RENAISSANCE
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF COLLECTING
BY
Julius von Schlosser
With 102 illustrations
Leipzig 1908—Klinkhardt & Biermann
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.
II.
Preface
57
INTRODUCTION:
PREHISTORY OF THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
59
The origins of collecting
Treasure houses and chambers of the dead
The temple as museum
Greeks and Romans
The Middle Ages
The church as museum
The role of antiquity
The curious and the bizarre
Profane devices in the church
Wax sculptures
Reliquary books
59
61
61
63
65
67
68
70
72
74
76
THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
79
The secular treasuries of princes
The collections of the Duke of Berry
The Dukes of Burgundy
Margaret of Austria
Archduke Ferdinand and the Ambras collection
The collections in Munich and Quiccheberg’s methodology
The Kunstkammer of Rudolf II in Prague
The Schatzkammer in Vienna
The Kunstkammern in Dresden and Berlin
The Gottorp Kunstkammer
Private collections
The role of the curiosi*
Kunstschränke
Artifice and the art of turning
Virtuosity
Natural wonders
Italy
Italian Kuriositätenkammern
An ideal Kunstkammer
The role of the curiosi in the eighteenth century
The literature of the Kunstkammern
79
80
90
92
93
143
144
149
149
151
154
159
162
165
165
169
172
175
177
180
181
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III.
CONCLUSION:
THE SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTING
189
Italy and its place in the modern world
The grandes galleries* of the seventeenth century
Holland and its position on collecting
England and the modern museum
The journeys of the English
The emergence of the state museum
The Musée Napoléon
The development of museum theory up to the present
189
193
194
198
199
200
201
203
Notes
205
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57
PREFACE
The following pages set out to describe a picture of a predominantly German, late
Renaissance culture. It will soon become clear that this theme is a crystallization of
the author’s involvement with one of the most famous of these old Kunst- und Wunderkammern: that of Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria, formerly housed at Schloss
Ambras in the Tyrol. Hence this collection is central to the present book, and we
have generally sought to take illustrations from its holdings. Given the author’s position as former director of the collection, which has now been incorporated into
the Hofmuseum in Vienna, this ought to be quite comprehensible. In endeavoring
to trace these Kunstkammern back to their origins and demonstrate their issue in
modern forms, the whole has also become a contribution to the history of collecting as such, an attempt that has to rely on a degree of indulgence on the part of the
reader insofar as, besides some isolated beginnings, to our knowledge there are only
a few extensive preliminary works on the subject and, for that, the material is all the
more diffuse and fragmentary.
Here I must thank my colleague, Dr. Camillo List; I owe the majority of the
illustrations to his kind and expert assistance.
Landskron-Gratschach in Carinthia, in the Mars year of 1907.
Julius von Schlosser
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59
I.
INTRODUCTION: PREHISTORY OF THE
KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
If anyone were to undertake to write a history of collecting from its origins on and
in all its manifold ramifications and excrescences — a subject that would be as interesting psychologically as it is culturally and historically — they would perhaps do
well not to shy away from condescending to the gazza ladra and the many remarkable observations that are claimed to have been made concerning the activity of
collecting within the animal kingdom.1 Recent investigations such as Karl Groos’s
study on the games of animals suggest that we might learn a great deal here. But it
would be impossible to give any thought to such things on the few pages that follow; nor can we allow ourselves anything but a brief sideways glance into the field
of child psychology, which is more accessible and contains all manner of possible
insights. From our own happy recollections we are all sufficiently aware of the pressing and vigorous urge children have to collect things, and of how that urge manages
to develop at home and at school, much to the vexation of parents and teachers. The
old Michel de Montaigne, perhaps the most perspicacious man of his times, and
certainly of his country, had already asserted that a child’s play is its most earnest
activity: “les jeux des enfants ne sont pas jeux, et les faut juger en eux comme leurs
plus sérieuses actions” (Games are not games for children but are to be judged as the
most serious things they do) (Essays 1.23). The abovementioned psychologist does
in fact elaborate on this aperçu and gives it a broader basis by presenting children’s
games as the necessary preparation and practice for the unfortunately rather less
playful life of the adult.2 Mere practice, but a practice which is borne happily aloft
on the wings of the imagination, touching and traversing the realms of art; Schiller
says as much in the most beautiful and thoughtful of his philosophical treatises, the
letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man. We shall have to pass over all this here, but
we ought just to mention that the urge to collect is closely connected with the idea of
personal property and with the no less complicated idea of adornment — primarily of
the collector’s own body — and that the latter brings it into the proximity of one of the
deepest wellsprings of all visual art. This becomes clearer when we hear that in very
many cases primitive man is a walking treasury unto himself, and that, for obvious
reasons, the things he holds dear and wants to call his own he carries around with
him on his very own body, often incurring no small amount of hardship. Foremost
among these things of course are the colorful, indelibly inscribed tattoos on his skin,
which can only be taken off along with the skin itself— in grotesque material antithesis to the motto of the Cynic philosopher. But that this sort of thing, which naturally
Fig. 1.
Oliphant reliquary, supposedly donated to Muri Abbey
by Landgrave Albert III of
Habsburg in 1199.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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60
SCHLOSSER
includes tattoos, even extends to the lower reaches of modern European culture is
something which is plain enough from any number of window displays in provincial
and suburban towns, with their photographs of local team heroes and minor sporting champions, festooned and ribboned with whole collections of commemorative
coins and medals of honor, in much the same way that the splendid portrait by Cornelis de Vos depicts Abraham Grapheus, the late emissary of the Guild of Saint Luke
in Antwerp, as both keeper and bearer of its prize medals and commemorative trophies. At this point, satirically inclined minds may well feel the need for an excursus
into the much derided and yet still highly coveted field of decorations and honors of
all kinds. But even this involves an undeniable spiritual element of a higher order;
it is not just human vanitas, nor merely a primordial delight in property and adornment. Rather, these effulgent vanities often come to be symbols of legitimacy, activity,
esteem, and lastly of power for their owners, and their effects as such are reciprocal.
They become social factors and values. Then, gradually, wherever an individual has
risen to a position of dominance over a larger or smaller majority, the projection of
these things follows. The military campaigns of the English in Africa, which have
furnished us with such remarkable insights into the social and political organization
of the Negro peoples, have also made us aware of the rich, well-stocked treasuries
of the black kings. The fact that these were all very young cultures means nothing.
These treasures certainly go a long way toward explaining the mystery of the power
and prestige that their leaders enjoyed. Admittedly, the main thing was the material
itself: gold bullion and elephant tusks — its value determined according to how precious, rare, and sought-after it was, and then by convention— but the pleasure and
selfishness of owners everywhere soon found expression in the artistic manipulation
of this raw material, in its transformation into jewelry and artifacts, that process by
which man first began actively and creatively appropriating and adapting the produce of nature. So there are two cultural currents flowing along one riverbed here
too. Modern ethnology has long since established the similarity between primitive
jewelry and primitive money; the picturesque coin jewelry worn by Greek and southern Slav women ultimately harks back to cowrie shell necklaces in much the same
way as the coin buttons on Upper German farmers’ vests do.3 As we have said, the
treasury is the projection — from the mobile to the stationary — of this natural, naive
notion of property as external adornment.
These incomplete and aphoristic reflections will fall into place when one considers that this protoplasm of treasures and the primitive treasury are the ultimate
sources of the complex and multifaceted form of our museums. We shall have to
return to how their origins in purely private property persisted right up to, and
indeed beyond, the threshold of the past century, and how their legitimacy endures
in certain highly conservative quarters even now. For the treasury was of course
only accessible and visible to its owner and perhaps his family and a few favored
guests. Who could fail to be reminded here of Herodotus’s anecdotes about Rhampsinit’s treasure and the wise Solon’s visit to King Croesus of Lydia?
In the historical narratives of the first two great world monarchies in the Mediterranean cultural sphere, and in the admittedly far more recent though no less
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PREHISTORY OF THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
fantastically tinged accounts of the American empires of the Incas and Aztecs, we
again find the archetypes of those fabulous fairytale treasure houses from which
Aladdin’s magic lamp shines forth, and which, courtesy of the oriental sagas of the
Thousand and One Nights, have filled our youthful imaginations with the gleam of
their precious stones. They are gone forever now of course, for these oldest museums — given that their basic character consisted in the accumulation of riches and
precious material things — were naturally subject to the furor of human desire and
the vicissitudes of earthly fortunes. But just as Mother Earth retains within her
womb a record of the most ancient history of organic life, she also comes to our
aid here. The strangest and most incommensurable of all earthly creatures, despite
the addiction that seems so indelibly implanted in him, nevertheless has to rescue,
prolong, and elevate his short-lived individuality to a world beyond the senses. And
yet he has never quite managed to break free of his mortal, sensual outlook, and
its carcass still clings to even the most spiritual and ascetic of religions. Just as the
primitive tomb was apparently conceived as the dead man’s house and seems to
have been based directly on customary forms of housing in a great many cases, so,
too, the most valuable possessions of the departed — for various reasons that cannot be gone into here — followed him into the grave, at least partly or symbolically.
Thus the alleged treasure houses of the Homeric heroes, for the discovery of which
we have Heinrich Schliemann to thank, are in truth their final resting places. And
for centuries we find the same idea in a similar culture: in warlords’ graves from
the Migration Period. From our standpoint these are invaluable little museums of
artistic practice in the Early Middle Ages.
The notion of the treasury sketched out in abridged form here also recurs in
another highly significant place. Of the verse according to which God created man
in his own image it has occasionally been said, both in scorn and in earnest, that
quite the opposite is true. Just as humanity, when raised to superhuman and supernatural status — to the status of divinity — found its house in the temple, so, too, its
exalted personal property was the temple treasure, the significance and persistence
of which tower as far above the treasuries of mortal princes as God’s dominion is
thought to be elevated above all earthly power. For the temple treasure is now no
longer the exclusive property of an individual, however powerful he might be; to a
greater or lesser extent it is the property of a community, a caste, a whole nation,
and therefore has a social value of the greatest significance even if it is not entirely
immune to changing fates and ideas. This is especially true of that ever-remarkable
nation from the coast and islands of the Aegean Sea, a people who will readily
appear as the very prime of humanity even to those who are not biased by classicist prejudice; it is perhaps the only nation without which world historical development in the proper sense of the term is inconceivable. Among all the nations of the
ancient world it was almost exclusively upon this nation that the idea of civic freedom first dawned — and it paid for it dearly. It was among the Hellenes, then, that
the treasures of the deities truly became public property for the first time, the temple
chamber and its precinct in a certain sense becoming the oldest public museum. For
here it was no longer merely a depository of riches, as it had been under the rigid
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SCHLOSSER
hierarchies of the ancient eastern empires; it was under this nation, consumed by
the feverish glow of its own development, achieving more in a few centuries than
the Orient had in millennia; and among these people, who were allowed and compelled to express the profound concept of the envy of the gods, that free art as such
came into its own. Even if it did serve religious purposes, it nevertheless occupied
a very different position than in the East. At a very early stage a series of important
works of art were gathered around the image of the godhead, some of them — statues of victors for instance — being intimately connected with the life and cult of the
nation. And it must also have been quite early on that the basic agonal character
of Hellenistic culture came to assert itself here: an enjoyment of open games and
contests of strength, something else that was very much part of the public realm and
takes a large portion of credit for the rapid development of Hellas. There is much to
suggest that artists vied for prizes in contests very like those that would later be held
in the not at all dissimilar communes of Tuscany, where even today the cathedral
workshops are like little museums of important works of art with a definite local
tinge. Hence the temple treasures of Greece, being open to all citizens, became the
first public museums of contemporary art and the art of the national past. Nothing
could be more instructive as to their place in public life than the delightful scene in
Herondas where the two nursemaids admire and wax lyrical about the works of art
on show at the Temple of Asclepius. There is more to it than that, though.
In line with the artistic character of this nation — and this is amply clear from
Herondas as well — art, in its formal aspect, clearly took center stage, though the
temple treasure, as national or municipal property, also reflected the collective
interests of the commune, which were closely linked to its religious cult. And so,
as in the medieval churches later on, the treasury housed not only the relics and
remains of revered heroes, which were no doubt often kept in precious containers,
but also encompassed popular historical mementos such as weaponry and all manner of booty. Both are characteristic of a nation whose thinking was entirely rooted
in mythology, even as it was also the first nation to write an intrinsically true and
meaningful history of man. Moreover, these treasures took in everything to which
that fable-loving nation felt irresistibly drawn: natural oddities (meteorites, which
were sacred to ancient Greek religion, can really only be included here on our own
terms); the bones of prehistoric creatures as the skeletons of giants; then ostrich
eggs, coconuts, stuffed animals from fabled faraway lands; and ethnographic curiosities from near and far.4 Indeed, the wily Odysseus, with his irrepressible mariner’s Latin and his constant interweaving of truth and fiction, really was the perfect
patron of the little nation that produced so venerable and amiable a narrator as
Herodotus, whose receptive and keen perception first observed and described the
natural world and the peculiarities of foreign tribes without pandering to the constraints of priestly dogma. In some respects, then, these Hellenic treasuries are the
oldest precursors of the later Kunst- und Raritätenkammern*.
But this bears repeating: what was stored in these treasuries under the aegis
of the godhead was public and accessible; it stimulated and satisfied curiosity and
inquisitiveness in a manner quite unlike that of the medieval church. And this was
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PREHISTORY OF THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
no small achievement; the Ionians and Attics asked questions of the natural world
that remain unanswered to this day. Then, especially in the later Greek periods,
these temple treasures — their importance can scarcely be overestimated — came to
be associated with an extensive body of literature, which, much like the medieval
reliquary books, will initially have been aimed at religious pilgrims and tailored to
their requirements, then to the broader traveling public, especially the antiquarian
interest of the Roman era. The only fully preserved one is Pausanias’s famous guide
to Greece, a book that in many respects bears comparison to the local literature of
Italy and, like these, for the most part represents a codification of what had long
been common knowledge among the ciceroni.5
But Pausanias not only describes the temple treasures; he also pays particular
attention to the countless works of art in the public squares and market halls. For
these Hellenic people, who like the Italians spent the best part of their existence in
lively intercourse on open marketplaces under congenial skies, were possessed of
that truly public and monumental art that, properly speaking, has eluded the North
even to this day. Rome then carried these traditions forward. Another witness to
the last and latest phase of the life of antiquity, Cassiodorus, still speaks of the many
statues that populated the desolate forums.
This sort of thing takes on a slightly strange aspect when one recalls that individuality and personality were still subject to considerable constraints and had to
struggle for recognition in ancient Greece. The democratic tyranny of the polis may
at times have been more oppressive for the individual than the absolute authority
of oriental autocracy. After all, a good portion of the history of Greek philosophy
is taken up with the protracted conflict between free individuals and tyranny.6 It
was not for nothing that the sage in the Garden of Aphrodite dressed up his renunciation of world and state in the laconic formula λάϑε βιώσας (to live unnoticed);
the impiety trials, and primarily the famous trial of Socrates, were the unpleasant
obverse of the brilliant freedom and openness of Athenian democracy. One can
see that individual art and private taste were just as incapable of development as
any noteworthy private architecture here, where the polis commandeered the entire
citizen, his whole personality, and all his property, ominously watching over him so
as to prevent any individual from stepping too far out of line.
It has long been said that the trial of Socrates marks the peripeteia of classical culture, and especially purely Hellenic culture. The dream of Greek municipal
freedom came to an end soon afterward, and the massive eastward political expansion that the Macedonians had allowed to the Greeks gave rise to what we are now
accustomed to calling Hellenism: a remarkable restoration of oriental forms of life
and governance in Greek clothing. One is almost tempted to see a providential
event in the equivalent westward expansion that was gained by another semi-Greek
empire of soldiers and foundered against the ominous ascendency of a new domestic power: Rome. Meanwhile, a personal, private element clearly comes to the fore
here, and that goes for art patronage as well. If this element initially seems to pertain almost exclusively to the ruler or can only be seen developing in the shadow of
his power — much like the northern period that began with the kings and princes
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SCHLOSSER
of fourteenth-century France and reached its zenith in Louis XIV — then that can
hardly be put down to any paucity of sources. The Pergamene kings and the Ptolemies in Egypt assembled large art collections and picture galleries, partly out of
historical interest, and it is telling that our museums derive their name from that
sphere.7 The Romans became their heirs in this respect too, but these last, westernmost representatives of classical culture already evidence an individualism that
frequently took very modern forms and seems to have been something intrinsic
rather than just the product of circumstances. The democratic Caesarism of old
actually grew up on quite different ground and under very different conditions than
the Hellenistic monarchy and only succumbed to orientalization in the third century after Christ. Hence the distinguished citizen of Rome — though admittedly also
the wealthy parvenu of highly dubious extraction, such as Trimalchio in Petronius
Arbiter’s novel of manners — originally built his luxurious villa in provocative proximity to the imperial palace and almost on par with it, as an independent entity
adorned with exquisite works of historical and modern art. With its reproductions
of noteworthy historical sites and regions, the tourist retreat that was Hadrian’s Villa
at Tivoli still seems to have related to the villas of his contemporaries as Augustus to Maecenas, as the first private citizen among equals. It is significant that the
name of that old Tuscan friend of art [Kunstfreund*] has become an appellation in
its own right. Before long, though, people began to complain — which reminds us
of the situation in modern-day England — that works of art were being banished
to exile in the villas, and before long Agrippa for his part responded by proposing to appropriate artistic property for the state, a notion that the new Italy, with
its various art edicts and monumenti nazionali, is doing its level best to emulate.
A well-meaning citizen from this period, Asinius Pollio, made his much-admired
collection, which included the Farnese Bull, accessible to the public; clearly there
were some very modern ideas and currents at work here. Given that the prejudice
against antique art had still not been overcome in Italy, it would be easy to overemphasize the artistic excesses of the dupes and dandies, though they were certainly a
significant feature of the quite capacious artistic life of the period. Still, that could be
said of any like-minded period, even the excessively glorified Italian Renaissance.
Alongside these private collections there was apparently a vast amount of public
art in the open markets and communal buildings of Rome alone; the Laocoön was
raised from the Baths of Titus. Here, too, Italy took the legacy of antiquity as its
national heritage; for better or worse, this was denied to the North. And though the
former significance of the temples had long since changed, they continued to serve
as museums. They still harbored works of art and rare natural objects, both of which
now flowed into Rome in a rich profusion that was occasionally just about exotic
enough. It is said that Caesar alone deposited six collections of carved stones at the
Temple of Venus Genetrix. A number of the inventory items that Pliny mentions
from the Greek reliquaries would fall neatly under the category of curiosa artificialia* in the later Wunderkammern*: distorting mirrors, rare surgical and musical
instruments, and particularly works that were valued for their artifice and artistry.8
As in so many other areas, then, the Roman period was more than just a summation
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PREHISTORY OF THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
and recapitulation of antiquity as a whole. It anticipated subsequent developments.
And that is why we have dwelt on these ancient things for so long. First of all,
here, as elsewhere, the historical beginnings help us to see the nature of the whole
development more clearly. But there is something else that is intimately connected
to this too. The complex structure of the second great development in the symphony
of western culture — if we can call it that — is much more difficult to make out; the
themes presented in the first movement have been varied and transposed and now
appear in different harmonic form, even though they remain essentially the same
themes. The visual art of the Mediterranean basin follows an overall development
that seems to exhibit a unique system of periodicity — and a parallelism first and
foremost — in the two great periods that we are able to distinguish: first, that which
came to an end with the reign of Diocletian; and second, that which on the face of it
seems to have come to an end with the French Revolution. This begs the question:
Will it not one day be the task of art history to provide and establish a full, objective, and detailed description of this periodic structure, without succumbing to the
temptation of wanting to hypostatize something that is akin to the laws of nature?
In any case, the second great period is more ramified and complicated precisely
because it builds directly on the one that has just elapsed; but just as the first period
elucidates much of the second, the latter also contains a great deal that casts light
back on what little we know of the former.
It can scarcely be our intention here even to touch upon the violent collapse
of classical culture, one of the deepest and most complex problems of social psychology [Völkerpsychologie]. One fact ought to be emphasized, though, for it is of
the greatest consequence: there was one place in which the continuity of the classical tradition persisted, albeit substantially reshaped and disfigured, until the end of
what we call the Middle Ages: the Rome of the East on the Bosporus. This was the
focal point of culture for the whole expanse of the Saracenic, Slavic, Mongol East,
just as Paris was destined to become the center of the West. It was here, to cite just
one highly significant phenomenon, that the remnants of one genuinely Hellenic
invention survived: painting in the modern sense, as a spatial art. From here it was
transplanted via the intermediary of Italy, or, more specifically, Etrurian Tuscany,
first to another intermediary, France, before then going on — after the interregnum
of the linear and planar style of the Gothic — to inaugurate the periods of modern
painting in the North as well. It is by no means an idle parallel to recall here those
two men who straddle two eras, the end of an epoch and the cusp of a new age; two
men who, as though imbued with the same inspiration, arrived at the highly autocratic notion of taking the artistic heritage of the past by force in order to concentrate it at their own places of residence: Constantine in the Byzantine city to which
he also gave his name, and Napoleon in Paris. Once again we find these two fateful
cities offering themselves up for comparison.
The abundance of public statues in Constantinople is said to have been beyond
description; the city harbored what is supposed to have been the largest museum of
historic art ever to have existed, and in an incomparable architectural setting. The
unique prospect of the Louvre under Napoleon can hardly have matched it. Hagia
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Sophia alone is supposed to have contained over four hundred statues. The many
forums with their army of monuments were still quite classical, and the contents of
whole towns were transferred there at Constantine’s bidding. If present-day Italy can
only give us an occasional hint of such riches, we get a vague idea of the profusion
of public art at that time when we learn that just one remote provincial town on the
Pontic coast, Amastris, forfeited to Constantinople a veritable museum of replicas
of famous works of art, which then became known as the Forum Amastrianum.
Then, in an expression of municipal pride that again recalls similar circumstances in
Italy, this gallery appears on the town’s own autonomous copper coins in the imperial age, as a marker of the various issues of coin. Similar things are not unheard of
elsewhere either. According to Josephus Flavius, the Jewish king Agrippa (a minor
Hellenic ruler) decorated the town of Berytus with copies of famous historic works
of art.9 And for the rest it becomes clear that Constantine acted no less systematically than Napoleon. Of course, for all the post-iconoclastic renaissances and the
Paleologan renaissances that followed them, it is doubtful that this mighty public
exposition of antique heritage ever had any substantial influence on living art; there
is little evidence to suggest that anyone made much use of it. But one ought not to
forget that there was scarcely any genuine Hellenic blood left in that former colony
of Megara in the barbaric land of Thrace; an awfully mixed population of Orientals
and Barbarians had their colorful way with the art world. In essence, neither art nor
the ancient, authentic Hellenic language was able to lead much more than a literary
shadow existence in scholarly cells and the refinement of the court. As in the Rome
of the West, a fabulous, fantastical undergrowth of myth and saga (far more interesting to the scholar than the antiquarianism of the more refined classes) grew up
from among the people, choking the heathen images until at last the works of antiquity disappeared under a tangled mass of demonic superstition and spectral devilry,
and this even before the Latins and Turks had buried them under the rubble of the
demolished city walls. Despite its long duration then, Constantine’s finest work was
perhaps less influential than Napoleon’s short-lived creation, which, at least in its
day, provided a rich source of inspiration to artists and scholars.
Meanwhile, more radical upheavals had taken place in the Occident. A new
development was already beginning to fester among the ruins of antiquity, a coexistence of decaying remains and primitive beginnings, formless and inconspicuous
at first but promising nonetheless, particularly for the visual arts, a good part of it
being a recapitulation of the process that had once played out in the eastern Mediterranean basin. Speaking half metaphorically one could say that the situation of
these new nations — including the Romanic nations then emerging on the territory
of the old empire — was similar to that of children practicing their naive and primitive drawing under the constant and not always salubrious supervision of adults.
Cognate characteristics consistently recur; this is the typical course of things in life
in general and could hardly be otherwise. Just as the focal point of spiritual life had
once been the temple, now it was the church, though far more exclusively so, for
in the meantime a thoroughly spiritualist religion had won out, a worldview that
denied the earthly and the profane and would have liked to escape them altogether.
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PREHISTORY OF THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
A completely new dualism, unknown and unknowable in classical antiquity, opened
up between the worldly and the spiritual, the faithful and the laity, a dualism that
would lead to the heaviest of conflicts. And so it is that the Middle Ages present us
with some very strange phenomena; a thoroughly profane worldling such as Ovid
could only look on aghast from beyond the grave as his stories — some of which are
really rather salacious — were turned to the purpose of moral edification. Much of
what now seems naive in the extreme or even repulsive and blasphemous in the
religious art, literature, and music of the Middle Ages can only be understood from
this perspective. The church simply drew everything into its ambit, for it was the
church alone that held the keys to true life and true history, beside which all else was
superfluous — a notion that only becomes comprehensible in light of the sublime
unity of the medieval worldview. The profane was permeated with religious form
and content.
Little wonder, then, that the church became the museum of the nation’s memories, ancient and modern. The two were inextricably interwoven, especially in Italy,
where antiquity was national property, passionately pined for throughout all historical strife and idolized as a golden age of greatness and unity. When the Florentines
received their famous porphyry column as a gift from Pisa, they knew of no better place for it than the principal sanctuary of the city, the Baptistery, which was
thought to be an antique temple to Mars. For the banished Dante, it symbolized his
fervent desire to set foot again upon the ardently beloved soil of his fatherland. And
in the same way, the famous Campo Santo in Pisa, where it was customary for the
gentry to have themselves interred in antique sarcophagi, became the first museum
of ancient sculpture, a school for artists from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century,
from Nicola Pisano to Bertoldo di Giovanni, Michelangelo Buonarroti’s master.
Although somewhat different, things were nevertheless similar in the most
powerful and resolutely independent of Italian states — in Venice, which had no
direct mementos of antiquity to call its own. Here, too, the principal church of San
Marco was a national museum; if anything, its particular history — kept forever
foremost in the popular imagination by splendid ecclesiastical festivals and processions — was connected to the consecrated site and the religious cult as such in an
even more remarkable way. Built into the walls of San Marco itself are reliefs that
supposedly adorned the palaces of the destroyed or sunken Venetic-Roman towns
that once stood on the edges of the lagoons: Altinum, Heraclea, Equilio, and so on;
and it was here that this bold nation of traders and seamen deposited the booty from
their forays into the Greek and Muslim Levant. The well-traveled quadriga from
Constantinople still looks out over the Piazza San Marco, and the Ptolemaic pillars
are still standing. Similarly, tradition has it that the bronze griffin with the Arabic
inscription from the Cathedral in Pisa, now in the Campo Santo, was looted from
the Balearic Islands.
To the north of the Alps, too, the churches were the earliest repositories of
antique fragments and finds. This much becomes abundantly clear when one visits
Carinthia, one of Austria’s most remarkable alpine crownlands. There is hardly a
single village chapel without an inscribed Roman stone or some fragment of antique
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Fig. 2.
Prunner’s Cross at Maria
Saal, after the drawing by
Hugo Charlemont (Austrian,
1850–1939) in Die
österreichisch-ungarische
Monarchie (Vienna:
Kaiserlich und Königlich
Hof- und Staatsdruckerei,
1886), 60.
entablature embedded in its walls. The venerable Romanesque church of Maria Saal
on the Zollfeld at Klagenfurt, near the ancient site of Virunum, is an especially
good example: antiquities found in the surrounding area soon turned it into a wellstocked local museum.10 Then, in the seventeenth century, the valiant local archaeologist Johann Dominik Prunner had a field chapel constructed from nothing but
antique fragments: the so-called Prunner’s Cross [Prunnerkreuz], which stands just
behind the present Zollfeld railway station (fig. 2).
If artists this side of the Alps were still on the former territory of the old empire, it
cannot be denied that they were often inspired by different motifs, motifs that rarely
achieved any prominence in Italy, their country of origin. Roman art was always
something exotic to the Barbarian lands of the North, so the influence of antiquity
was only ever superficial or accidental. Such artworks, even before they became tarnished with the stigma of heathenry, were always alien here, and as a result they
were perceived as uncanny and demonic; the only way to make this devilry entirely
safe was to banish it to the consecrated walls of the church. Not everyone showed
such leniency. Graven images — in northern Germany their place is taken by early
Slavic figures — were often built into the walls upside down, while some were even
cast down into the foundations.11 True, one occasionally catches a glimpse of this
sort of demonization in Italy as well: Ghiberti, for instance, tells a fascinating tale
(of no small interest to the cultural historian) about a statue of Venus that was found
in Siena and set up on the Fonte Gaia, where people thronged to admire it. Some
time later the city was beset by all manner of afflictions, and the statue became the
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PREHISTORY OF THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
scapegoat. It was taken down and secretly buried on the enemy territory of neighboring Florence. But this sort of thing is very rare indeed; in Italy one could hardly
expect to find an antique so barbarically mutilated as the Torso of Trier, a so-called
stigma that was put on display at a church, where centuries of zealous pilgrims hurled
stones and insults at it.12 Even as recently as the Renaissance, an upended antique
capital was made to serve— half symbolically — as a support for Ercole de’ Roberti’s
remarkable wood carving of Christ at San Giovanni in Monte, Bologna.
It is no small proof of the δεύτερος πλοῦς (second voyage), the eternal recurrence of all basic human forms, that the church treasuries of the Middle Ages are
made up of almost exactly the same components as the temple treasures of antiquity. And though we can hardly expect to see victor’s monuments on the pattern of
antiquity in the Middle Ages, they do find their equivalents in the reliquary busts
and ossuary chests of the Christian martyrs. Indeed, the medieval goldsmiths did
everything in their power to emulate and equal them. But we shall say no more
of the artistic production of that era here; we need only mention that the Middle
Ages did find a place for the art of the past. There was one precious legacy of the
ancient world it did preserve, and for the most part on consecrated ground (after
sanctification by exorcism): engraved gemstones. As we know, the famous Gemma
Augustea in Vienna comes from the treasury of Saint Sernin at Toulouse. The great
Shrine of the Three Kings from the treasury at Cologne Cathedral and the Shrine
of Saint Elisabeth in Marburg became veritable dactyliothecas brimming with
fabulously colorful ostentation. A lovely example of this naïveté on the part of the
Middle Ages — at least by our standards — is a crucifix in the museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne [Kölner Metropolitanmuseum, now known as the Kolumba]: its
head consists of an antique gem. If proof were needed that this sort of thing could
sometimes also be found at important sacred sites — despite the demoniacal fear
of heathen imagery — one need only look to the Roman Basilica di Santa Croce in
Gerusalemme and its statue of Saint Helena, for which the torso of an antique Juno
was used. This being the case, it seems almost self-evident that precious antique
artifacts should also have found their place in the medieval treasury: one famous
instance is the Agate Grail [Gralschüssel] in Vienna, a large antique bowl in the
Kaiserliche Schatzkammer; then there are the remarkable antique vessels of crystal
and semiprecious stones from the treasury of Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, now in
the Louvre.13 These ecclesiastical treasures were a faithful reflection of medieval
man’s penchant for all things fabulous, his constant search for significant content,
particularly the strange, the wondrous, and the foreign. Here we might add that they
resemble the later Kunst- und Wunderkammern far more closely than the temple
treasures of antiquity.
One of the finest examples was (and to a large extent still is) the treasury of
San Marco, which was preserved intact until the end of the Venetian Republic.14
Particularly after the Crusades, which were as important for the Middle Ages as the
exploitation of West India and East Asia in later times, the wonders of the Orient
were brought together in the churches of the West. Even before that, though, pious
pilgrims had been bringing things back from their trips to the Holy Land, precious
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70
SCHLOSSER
works by skilled Byzantines and Saracens along with all manner of rarities and curiosities. But all this had to conform and defer to the Holy One and His consecrated
sanctuary; Christianity and Heathenry, the wonders of nature and art, were brought
together in a colorful, confused yet somehow unified whole, for these objects were
almost always used for liturgical purposes, adapted as containers for reliquaries, and
so on. For us this opens up a fairytale world now associated with the poetry of the
Holy Grail and the legends of Prester John of the Orient, curiously interwoven with
the fables, sagas, and myths of medieval natural history and geography, for these
old writers happily spun out their rich tales of adventure throughout the Middle
Ages. Ferdinand Denis covered this inviting literary field in a lovely little booklet, now something of a rarity in itself.15 And so, alongside Arabian cups of crystal
and glass, woven silks, gem-encrusted vessels, and oriental ivory cornets, Moorish
majolica bowls such as those embedded in the facades of the Pisan churches as trophies of their Balearic forays; alongside all these things we find the real witnesses
to the enchanted world in which medieval man had cocooned himself.16 In some
respects the “oliphants” fall under this category (fig. 1). The most famous of these
richly carved elephant tusks, at the cathedral in Aachen, was the alleged hunting
horn of Emperor Charlemagne, which he received as a gift from Harun al-Rashid.
It was probably quite common for such horns to be filled with relics and donated
to churches by returning crusaders and pilgrims. The same can be said of the supposed “griffin claws” — the horns of exotic antelopes and the like — which generally
appear in the form of fantastic cups resting on bird’s feet. One famous example
hangs from chains in Braunschweig Cathedral and recalls the griffin episode from
the well-known books of folklore about Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. Then
there are the “alicorns” that were thought to have adorned the head of the unicorn, mystical companion to the Virgin Mary. In reality they were narwhal tusks;
one such celebrated piece came to the Kaiserliche Schatzkammer in Vienna from
Burgundy and, like the abovementioned agate bowl, counts among the inalienable
crown jewels of the House of Austria. And then there are the ostrich eggs. These
used to hang from chains in the temples of ancient Greece, though some were set
in gold and silver; after all, the Judeo-Christian tradition associates the ostrich with
none other than King Solomon.17 And here we should also mention the so-called
snake tongues — shark’s teeth used to create credenzas; there is a fine example at the
Hofmuseum [court museum, now the Kunsthistorisches Museum] in Vienna (fig.
3) — then coconuts, and finally cups and bowls made from the incorruptible wood
of the cedars of Lebanon and the olive trees of the Holy Land. Examples of these set
in gold and silver can often still be found in church treasuries and historic collections today; their characteristic form is a regular feature in representations of the
Adoration of the Magi (fig. 4). Here we ought not to forget that, besides being of
interest on account of their scarcity and strangeness, these things were also sought
after for one very real and practical reason, albeit a rather peculiar and aberrant one:
there was at that time an all-pervading and no doubt well-founded fear of poison,
a fear that was just as prevalent in the papal and imperial courts as it was in the
households of secular grandees and church dignitaries. Belief in the secret powers of
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PREHISTORY OF THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
71
these outlandish materials was widespread and was corroborated by contemporary
natural history. Heinrich Pogatscher in Rome has now collected a wealth of data
on this subject; it is published in an essay, “Von Schlangenhörnern und Schlangenzungen” (On snake horns and snake tongues).18 One particularly remarkable story
is that of a certain family relic from the House of Foix-Béarn: a horn-handled knife
that was repeatedly lent to popes such as Clement V and John XXII; the so-called
proof (credence) was of course also a standard fixture on the ceremonial table at the
papal court.
Precious and semiprecious stones were especially important and were likewise
valued for the protection they were thought to provide against poison, as antidotes
for diseases and various other ills. There is a whole body of literature connected
with them: the so-called lapidaries of the Middle Ages, where one finds some very
curious information on antique gemstones. Animal products such as rhinoceros
horns and bezoars (stomach stones of camels and the like) can be included here
too, for they will figure prominently later on, especially in the Raritätenkammern
of the Renaissance. If fossils and petrifications were still considered as inexplicable
lusus naturae even as late as the seventeenth century, they ought not be omitted here
either. As in the ancient world, the fantastical imagination of medieval man and
the lasting influence of old folklore led him to believe that the prehistoric animal
remains that occasionally did come to light were the bones of giants. Thus it was
Fig. 3.
Credenza, 15th century.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 4.
Double mazer in olive
wood, 15th century.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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72
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 5a.
The “giant’s bones” from
the Stephansdom, after
the illustrations in Franz
Tschischka, ed.,
Geschichte der Stadt Wien,
vol. 1. (Stuttgart:
A. Krabbe, 1847).
Fig. 5b.
The casket of El Cid at
Burgos Cathedral.
Fig. 5c.
Capilla del Lagarto at
Seville Cathedral.
quite common for them to be seen hanging from chains in churches. The shoulder
blade of a sea monster at Johanniskirche in Lüneburg was attributed to none other
than the biblical Goliath.19 And it might also be worth mentioning that the Riesentor of the Stephansdom in Vienna was thought to derive its name — though this is
possibly incorrect — from one of the mammoth bones that was unearthed there in
1443, when the foundations for the incomplete second tower were being dug, and
then suspended inside the portal (fig. 5a). This bone is now in the university’s natural history collection and still bears the inscription of Friedrich III’s well-known
motto. The famous aerolite that used to hang in the church at Ensisheim in Alsace
was noted by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, along with its curious Latin inscription
of 1492, when he was still a student at Strasbourg. Similar things can be found in
Italy. Whale bones and an exotic shield, apparently donated by Christopher Columbus, can be seen in the Church of Fontegiusta in Siena, and, until the nineteenth
century, Arezzo Cathedral still contained a colossal whale jawbone that had been
found at Montione in 1560. It is now kept in the more modern but also more sober
setting of the municipal museum.
Here we still need to give a more thorough account of the many diverse profane
artifacts that found refuge in the church treasuries. Their preservation was certainly
related to a fundamentally ascetic tendency in the Middle Ages, a tendency that
would return to encroach on the Renaissance for a brief episode — though with irresistible force — in the Florence of Girolamo Savonarola at the end of the fifteenth
century. Dedication to such worldly trinkets was a symbol of reflection and penitence, a rejection of false earthly things, the same sentiment that resounds with
melodic melancholy in one of the finest poems by Walther von der Vogelweide:
The world outside is beautiful, white, green, and red
Inside its color is black, as dark as though it were dead.
Similarly, the church treasures have preserved for us the broadest possible range of
profane industry in the rarest and richest examples from the early medieval period:
ladies’ jewelry boxes from the Byzantine, Venetian, Saracenic, and Northern empires;
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PREHISTORY OF THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
all manner of toiletries; even — and this is quite characteristic — board games as the
real stuff of the devil. A remarkable example of this kind was recently discovered
inside the altar of a church in Aschaffenburg, where it was being used as a reliquary;
a similar games board once served as a cover for a plenarium from the Guelph Treasure [Welfenschatz] (now in Vienna); while a third, which almost certainly stems
from the same workshop in northern Italy and is traditionally thought to have been
the games board of Duke Otto of Carinthia, found its way into a secular collection
at a relatively early date: that of Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol at Schloss Ambras.
There were yet other motivations at work when profane garments, weapons, and
the like were deposited in churches. The Styrian pilgrimage site of Mariazell prides
itself on owning reliquaries thought to have been donated by Louis the Great of
Hungary after a successfully fought battle.20 The great cathedrals of Spain still show
some remarkable examples of this kind (figs. 5b, 5c). Suspended from the vault of
the Capilla del Lagarto at Seville Cathedral are a crocodile, a large elephant tusk,
and the alleged bridle of El Cid’s horse, Babieça. Similarly, the Capilla de los Reyes
Nuevos at Toledo Cathedral still contains the Portuguese standard from the Battle of
Toro (1476) and the armor of Ensign Duarte de Almeida. Lastly there is the worldfamous chest of El Cid, which is exhibited in the cathedral of his native Burgos to
this day. With its countless trophies from battles with the Russians, Turks, and Germans, the Riddarholmskyrkan in Stockholm — the mausoleum of the royal family
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74
SCHLOSSER
of Sweden — is a truly atmospheric museum and monument to the military past of
that country. The same can be said of the church of the militant Italian Order of
Saint Stephen in Pisa; its interior is a veritable museum of Turkish trophies. The persistence of this sort of thing right up to the present is perhaps most obvious in the
deafening, barbaric ostentation of the Russian churches: the emperor’s uniforms are
exhibited as though they were objects of worship, in their own display cases in front
of the bristling golden iconostasis of Preobrazhensky Cathedral in Saint Petersburg.
In much the same way, a number of veritable historical portrait galleries came into
being as various churches received donations in the form of votive wax statues, still
dressed in garments once worn by their benefactors. The strangest of these must
have been the Church of the Annunciation in Florence, which was completely filled
with fully clothed, life-size wax figures until they were finally removed in the eighteenth century; among others it contained portraits of fifteenth-century rulers such
as Emperor Friedrich III.21 One gets some idea of what these works were like from
the interesting votive statue of the last Count of Gorizia, which came to the Ferdinandeum [Tiroler Landesmuseum] at Innsbruck a few years ago. Incidentally, the
northern practice of sculpted wax portraiture can be traced back to the fourteenth
century; it continued to flourish right up to the end of the eighteenth century and
even into the Biedermeier period. Proof of this is held at the Hofbibliothek and
Fideikomissbibliothek in Vienna: a remarkable series of portrait busts of German
emperors, some of considerable artistic merit, running all the way up to Emperor
Leopold II (there is also a fine, recently restored bust of Empress Marie Louise).
Some other examples may be briefly enumerated: the wax bust and clothed wax
figure of Peter the Great in the Hermitage (the first is now illustrated in the Trésors
d’art en Russie [1903], plates 1 and 2); the remarkable, similar portraits of Frederick
the Great in the Hohenzollern Museum; the busts of Frederick III of Denmark and
his wife at the Rosenborg in Copenhagen; the bust of a Doge from the House of
Mocenigo in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice; the eighteenth-century
portraits of the children of Venetian patricians, still in their old display cases in
the Museo Correr; and above all the busts of the Capuchin saints in the sacristy
of Il Redentore, which are of outstanding artistic value. Emilia especially appears
to have been a center of this sort of wax sculpture; the museum at Faenza contains the bust of Domenico Paganelli, the builder of the town fountain, from San
Domenico; but Bologna in particular possesses many more wax sculptures, both
in the churches (such as a very beautiful relief in San Vitale) and at the anatomical
institute of the university, which also has a remarkable collection of old pathological preparations in wax. Religious sculpture in wax also survived long into the
nineteenth century here, as the very adeptly executed statue of a young saint in San
Sigismondo (by Bettini) attests. In the museum at Graz there is a lovely bust of a
woman wearing clothing from the 1820s; hence people in the North also remained
true to this tradition for a long time, though ultimately it would give way to the
daguerreotype and photography.
A related but lesser known Italian example is preserved to this day in the pilgrimage church of Santuario Beata Vergine Maria delle Grazie just outside the gates
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PREHISTORY OF THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
75
of Mantua. Though the statues here are mere imitations from a later period, the
interior nevertheless gives a sense of what many Renaissance churches will once
have looked like (fig. 6). Another is the Islip Chapel at Westminster Abbey in London, remarkable because the custom of installing fully clothed waxworks persisted
among the inhabitants of that conservative island nation right up to the turn of the
nineteenth century; the last portrait figure to stand there in state — not unlike those
exhibited at funerals in medieval France — was the great Lord Nelson (d. 1805).22
———
Thus the churches of the Middle Ages became an inexhaustible source of treasures
for contemplation and instruction. This was of the utmost significance, for once these
things had been taken under the mighty wing of the church and, as it were, sanctified,
they became accessible to the public, albeit with certain conditions and limitations.
On festive occasions they were publicly presented and explained to the people, exhibited on purpose-built tribunes, sometimes even in their own buildings. The so-called
Heiligtumstuhl (seat of relics) of Saint Stephan in Vienna, only fully dismantled in
1792, is still known from an old woodcut (fig. 7). Some of the old customs associated with the Aachen pilgrimage have been preserved to this day; not so long ago
the daily papers still used to report all manner of remarkable things about them.23
The church treasuries of the Middle Ages will certainly have been accessible to pious
pilgrims and, on special occasions, perhaps also to others, just as they are now. There
Fig. 6. Interior of Santuario
Beata Vergine Maria delle
Grazie near Mantua.
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76
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 7.
The Heiltumstuhl in
Vienna, from the Wiener
Heiltumbuch of 1502.
was a vast body of literature associated with them, particularly in Germany: the socalled Heiligtumsbücher (reliquary books). These truly populist guides — some of
which count among the earliest products of the letterpress— took the form of broadsheets and short books adorned with woodcut illustrations. And though their raison
d’être was the relic, in many respects they have to be seen as the northern, medieval
Christian counterpart to the primitive periegetic literature of Greece.24 The oldest
are those from Maastricht and Aachen (1460–70), Kloster Georgenberg in the Tyrol
(1480), Würzburg (1483), the Basilica of Saints Ulrich and Afra at Augsburg (around
1483), Bamberg (1493), Nuremberg (1483), and Vienna (1502) (fig. 8).
The church treasuries from the end of the German Middle Ages already give
quite a clear outline of the character of the later Kunst- und Wunderkammern;
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77
PREHISTORY OF THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
indeed, they are the continuation — albeit in secular guise — of the same mentality
that produced the great private princely collections of the North from the fourteenth
century onward. As in so many fields, the North adhered to an indigenous medieval
“Gothic” tradition, whereas Italy built upon impulses derived from its own national
past: antiquity. These impulses are the direct predecessors of more modern ideas.
Fig. 8.
A page from the Wiener
Heiltumbuch of 1502.
From left to right, top to
bottom:
In a silver monstrance, as a
cock, the relic of Saint
Maurice and that of the rod
of Saint Coloman.
A decorated ostrich egg
with an image of Saint
Blaise and his relic with
that of Saint Agnes.
In a large horn the relic of
Saint Eustace.
In a half ostrich egg the
head of Saint Leodegar, a
bishop and martyr.
In a decorated ostrich egg
the relics of Saint
Lawrence, Saint Blaise,
Saint Lamprecht, and
Saint Lucia.
Again in a decorated
ostrich egg the relics of
Saint Julian the Martyr and
the robe of Saint Anthony.
In a finely decorated
ostrich egg with a pelican,
inside an awl of Saint
Erasmus.
In a silver gilded monstrance the relics of Saint
Lawrence, Saint Christina,
and the eleven thousand
virgins.
In a silver gilded monstrance with a crystal, the
relics of Saint Lawrence
and the arm of Saint
Nicholas.
In a little crystal cup the
relic of Saint Maurice.
The spear of Saint George.
A silver image of Saint
George on a silver gilded
base with his relic.
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79
II.
THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
The ecclesiastical treasuries of the church, which have just been described in brief
overview, are joined in the High Middle Ages by the increasingly recognizable features of the secular treasuries of the princes. The basic characteristics of the latter are
essentially no different from those of the former. As one would expect, the profane
elements begin to emerge more clearly and in their own right; at the same time,
though, ample space is given over to sacred liturgical objects and all manner of
reliquaries — integral elements of the ubiquitous private chapel. Thus the difference
between these and the ecclesiastical treasuries is more quantitative — they become
more profane — than qualitative; initially, of course, the church retained its position as the only spiritual authority that was entitled to set the tone and determine
the general direction of things. There is, however, one very prominent and quite
self-evident difference between them: the profane treasuries were purely private
and accessible to only a very select few; we have already mentioned that the great
princely Kunstkammern* that grew out of these treasuries — especially those in the
North — retained this exclusive, private character until the end of the eighteenth
century. It would take a completely new age with radically different social and political views to break the noble seal of this closed aristocratic world, to replace the
individual power of the ruler with the abstract state and the sovereign people, to
make what had been intended for the personal enjoyment of the individual into the
common property of all. This process of appropriation was not always peaceable.
At first, and for a very long time in the North, the development was borne and
led by the collections of the princes. At their head were the French Valois, who,
despite being embroiled in a disruptive feud with England for nearly the entire duration of the fourteenth century, and notwithstanding all the confusion and distress,
were able to make their House the most splendid representative of this supremacy.
As early as the High Middle Ages, all western nations and even a portion of the
Levant have looked upon France as the leading light in science, in the visual arts, in
poetry and music, and not least in fashion. It was a signal moment of exceptionally
long-lasting consequences that the highest earthly power — having been put in its
place by imperial rule — now resided on French soil within the jurisdiction of the
firstborn sons of the church. Even the early king John the Good (1320–64) had been
a keen booklover and book collector, and these proclivities were only compounded
in his four sons: in his successor Charles V; in Louis d’Anjou, later King of Naples
and Jerusalem; in John, Duke of Berry; and in Duke Philip of Burgundy. In their
Fig. 9.
Archduke Ferdinand as widower,
miniature.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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80
SCHLOSSER
splendid palaces in Paris, Angers, Bourges, and Dijon, these four men were the first
great patrons of art in northern Europe, the first bibliophiles in the home of bibliophilia, the forebears of a grand and distinguished line of friends of art stretching all
the way down to the Duke of Aumale, whose wonderful Château de Chantilly has
now also become public property, having been generously bequeathed to the nation
along with all its treasures.25
The love of art [Kunstliebhaberei*], however, was most intense in the third son
of King John, that very John, Duke of Berry, who, in terms of his political position,
occupied the lowest rank among his brothers.26 If not endowed with the immeasurable riches of Burgundy, he still managed to dedicate considerable sums of money
to his passion for collecting — though admittedly history accuses him of having
inflicted a degree of hardship on his loyal subjects in the process. He is in fact the
first modern collector in the grand style, one who filled his treasury with artworks
for reasons other than ostentation or curiosity. This was by no means the case with
his brothers; on the whole their collections were more like treasuries in the proper
sense, albeit the richest France had ever possessed. The modern notion of the collection can scarcely be applied to them. The objects they contained served no other
purpose than the personal use and adornment of the owner and his private chapel;
in short, everything that falls under the term guardaroba*. But there is something
new about the collection of the Duke of Berry, even if its arrangement and content
do conform to the mold of the old treasuries. This may have something to do with
the accuracy of the record that has come down to us, but even so, the Duke of
Berry’s treasure is the first instance of the pronounced shift to modern collecting,
and the reverberations that issue from this source can be felt — as we shall see — for a
very long time afterward. This merits more detailed investigation. Though he clearly
evidences a strong and truly medieval pleasure in the materials themselves, there
are occasional indications that betray an appreciation of artistic form as such.
A brief glance at the life of this prince will perhaps be appropriate here. Though
he can hardly be said to occupy a conspicuous place in history, his life was anything but uneventful. Still, he was granted ample leisure to indulge his inclinations
and seems to have been more of a stately, well-endowed private citizen than anything. A drawing by the younger Holbein in Basel, made after the Bourges funerary
monument erected by Charles VII, gives a precise characterization of the peculiarly
bourgeois physiognomy of the Valois: a round, peasant-like cranium with strong
cheekbones, and above them a sparkling pair of astute little eyes, not without bonhomie (fig. 10).
Born in Vincennes as the third son of John II and Bonne of Luxembourg in
1340, he spent the best years of his youth at the magnificent Parisian court. In 1360
he was married to Joan, daughter of the Count of Armagnac, who brought a princely
dowry to the union. Since his former Duchy of Poitou had been lost to England a
year previously, his royal brother — who always proved well disposed and generous
toward him — compensated him with the regions of Berry and Auvergne, along with
the ducal title. After the death of his first wife he married Joan of Boulogne in 1389,
another wealthy heiress. Thus his patronage rested on solid financial foundations.
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
81
Fig. 10.
Hans Holbein the Younger
(German, 1497–1543).
Jean de France, Herzog
von Berry, ca. 1523–24.
drawing after the funerary
statue of the Duke of Berry,
reproduced in Jules
Guiffrey, ed., Inventaires
de Jean duc de Berry
(1401–1416), 2 vols.
(Paris: Ernst Leroux,
1894–96), CXCV.
Basel, Kunstmuseum.
Unlike his brother, Philip the Bold of Burgundy, he was never involved in military undertakings, nor does he seem to have been entirely lacking in diplomatic
skills. The last years of his life were embittered by partisan strife and a variety of
misfortunes, the greatest of these being the Burgundian dispute with the Armagnacs under the incompetent rule of Charles VI. The Duke of Berry lived to see the
murder of his nephew, the Duke of Orléans, and the fateful Battle of Agincourt,
where the happiness and fortune of France fell to a victorious England. He went to
his grave a year later, in 1416, at the age of 76.
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82
SCHLOSSER
His achievements as a patron of the arts, and the buildings and public institutions he created, remain within the bounds of the princely patronage of his time and
shall not detain us here, for there is already a lengthy French work on this chapter
of his life.27
There is an element of tragedy in the fact that the duke’s entire collection, so
carefully and lovingly assembled and maintained, was for the most part destroyed
soon after he shut his eyes. The hard times that followed the ill-fated Battle of Agincourt meant that almost everything of material value, particularly the wonderful
metalwork, made its way to the royal mint. A single precious and elaborate golden
crucifix, the production of which the Duke of Berry had ardently supervised even
in his final days, brought in 3441 livres in gold and 930 in silver; it had survived its
patron’s passing by barely two months. Virtually all that was left of his treasure was
the remnant that fell to his two female heirs, his daughters Bonne of Armagnac and
Marie of Bourbon.
That we are nevertheless so precisely informed about the Duke of Berry’s possessions and passions is due to the thoroughly French administrative talents and
the detailed accuracy of the inventories produced by his loyal intendant, Robinet
d’Estampes (1413). All French inventories are distinguished by a high degree of
objectivity and accuracy (which is just as true of Burgundy as it is, for instance, of
the inventory of Margaret of Austria in later centuries); they fare very well indeed
when compared to the German inventories, which were generally written in the
coarsest domestic jargon. And here it is probably reasonable to assume some personal influence on the part of our zealous collector. The art collection was kept at the
duke’s favorite resort, the Château de Mehun-sur-Yèvre, where the famous library of
this prince des bibliophiles was also housed.
The remarkable figure of John, Duke of Berry, straddles a fault line between two
worlds: he points back to the Middle Ages and forward to a new era. And his collection ought to be judged from this perspective too, for that is what gives it its remarkable, perhaps unique, historical character. Just as the collection was not yet clearly
distinguished from his treasury, all his interests had two sides. Of course, one has to
concede that he took great pleasure in costly materials and instructive or rare objects,
but alongside that he also showed a significant interest in formal, artistic value, as
well as a certain historical interest, much like the later Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol.
He was perhaps the first modern friend of art in the North: he collected works of art
for their own sake and in fact already bore many of the traits of the modern amateur
[Amateur*] in both the positive and the negative sense. Collecting for Berry was a
real passion, one that occasionally tempted him to commit mild extortion, though
this was never entirely without its humorous side. He would borrow books to have
them copied, then forget to give them back, very much like another princely collector, Rudolf II. From the Abbey of Saint Denis he salvaged a copy of the Chroniques
de France, which remained in his library until his death. Delectably enough, they
were even listed in the inventory; the order for their restitution was only obtained
through the intervention of the confessor as the duke lay on his deathbed. Once he
had passed on, the reclamation notices came in thick and fast: the guardians of the
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
royal library requested a French Bible; the trustees of the estate of his great nephew,
the Duke of Guyenne, asked for the return of a Terence and a brevier; Monsieur
Salmon, secretary to Charles VI and the Duke of Berry’s former factotum, wanted
an autograph edition of the Cité de Dieu that had apparently been lent, not given, to
the deceased. But the Duke of Berry himself never showed any compunction about
asking for the return of gifted books after the passing of their recipients. The man was
simply consumed by his passion for collecting. This is how he is presented in a brief
but typically frank scene from a contemporary novel, Le chevalier errant by Thomas
of Saluzzo. The duke is in high society and about to approach his royal nephew to
accept the regency of Languedoc. Just as he is engaged in a lively discussion about
this important political matter, he is told that two Venetian merchants have arrived
offering precious gemstones for sale. Suddenly he forgets all else — society, politics,
the royal audience — and can think only of his beloved jewels.28 It is not for no reason
that the duke’s collection of cameos was famed long after it had been dispersed; even
as late as the second half of the fifteenth century, Filarete’s Treatise related,“They also
praise the Duke of Berry for his great delight in these things. Whenever he heard of
a noble thing, he paid no attention to the expense if he could possibly have it.”29 And
according to Filarete’s account, the duke even possessed one of the most famous cameos of antiquity, the Gemma Augustea, now in the cabinet of antiquities in Vienna
(from the treasury of Saint Sernin at Toulouse).30 This prepared the way for direct
imitation. In fact, his inventory of 1416 does mention two gems (pierres en camahieu)
with the duke’s portrait (nos. 606 and 611 in Guiffrey), both of them New Year’s gifts
from close relatives wanting to delight the collector. One such cameo, which, so the
inscription has it, was engraved with the duke’s portrait, turns up at the beginning
of the sixteenth century in the art collection of Margaret of Austria. Here we are
certainly talking no longer about the sort of adaptations of iconic antique stones that
were done in the Early Middle Ages, but rather of real imitations such as those we
have in another material: the remarkable, thoroughly classicizing portrait medals of
the last two Paduan Carrara, Petrarch’s patrons, medals that directly approximate
the coins of the Roman emperors. It is all the more likely that the duke did own an
example of the medal of Francesco Novello da Carrara, one that very much recalls
the habits of the Italian Renaissance amateurs, for it was struck in lead at Sesto’s
workshop (or whoever the artist may have been) and will have recommended itself
on account of the fineness of the impression. Besides historical interest, this certainly suggests that there was also a considerable degree of interest in artistic form as
such — a further sign of more modern times.
The Duke of Berry’s collection naturally included actual antiquities as well. And
not just a small collection of gold and silver coins of probable Roman extraction;
that was nothing unusual for a contemporary of Petrarch. He also owned a pair of
vessels partly adorned with Greek inscriptions and figural representations of Bellerophon and the Chimera (though the author of the inventory evidently saw them
as the legendary Caballus Constantini). These objects can be associated with the
rich silverwork of the late Roman period.31 Other objects in the collection are even
more remarkable; as with the abovementioned portrait cameo, they demonstrate
83
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84
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 11.
Medal of Constantine,
Flemish, late 14th century.
New York, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
that antiquity directly influenced artistic production within the collector’s immediate environment.
Robinet’s inventory (nos. 776, 777) lists two gold vessels, richly encrusted with
gemstones, expressly designated as being “d’ancienne façon” (in the ancient manner) and featuring some very curious, partly illegible inscriptions along with images
of fictitious ancient personalities (Sempronius Gallus, Caelius Servilius, and so
on). Scholars several years ago sought to show that these were probably the earliest
known cases of forged antiquities.32 Presumably they were produced with the duke
in mind. Another series of highly remarkable works from the same circle throws
more light on the matter: four or five large gold medals with rich surrounds, accurately described in Robinet’s inventory (nos. 55, 197, and 200) and supposedly representing a sort of histoire métallique of Christianity under the Roman emperors, from
Augustus to Heraclius. Their Latin and — as Fröhner has shown — rather erroneous
Greek inscriptions, and their dependence on antique forms, quite obvious in at least
two of them, prove that these were conscious imitations and inventions after antiquity and, as with the gold vessels, were very probably counterfeits made in the Duke
of Berry’s immediate vicinity; the duke acquired them in Paris and Bourges in 1401
and 1402, from Italian dealers with whom he gladly and frequently did business,
though this circumstance by no means permits any inference as to their origins.
Two of the medals, namely those of Constantine and Heraclius, have come down
to us. To call them Giottesque or even Byzantine, as some have done, would be a
complete disavowal of the facts, for they bear all the hallmarks of the authentic
national Franco-Netherlandish style from the turn of the fourteenth century in the
duke’s own country (fig. 11). Moreover, in the famous Hours by the duke’s favorite
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
85
artists, the Limbourg brothers, now at Chantilly, there is a page (fol. 51v, showing the
Magi traveling from the East) where one of the Magi has clearly been modeled on
the mounted figure of Constantine. The type and form of this and the other figures
is so homogeneous that one might think that the skilled artist — also the author of
those prized medals — had given the game away, and that these, too, were the work
of none other than Pol de Limbourg or one of his brothers (fig. 12). Be that as it may,
the medals were in any case regarded as authentic antiques not only in the Duke of
Berry’s day but well into the seventeenth century; it took the heavy scholarly artillery of Scaliger and Ducange to demonstrate their more recent provenance. They
Fig. 12.
Limbourg Brothers
(Netherlandish, 15th
century). The Meeting of
the Magi, from Les Très
Riches Heures du duc de
Berry, ca. 1411/1413–16,
MS 65, fol. 51v.
Chantilly, Musée Condé.
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86
SCHLOSSER
were copied as antiques for the socle of the Certosa di Pavia, and when Antonio
Pisanello used them as models for his first known medal — of the Eastern Roman
emperor John VIII Palaeologus — he was absolutely convinced that his completely
novel, modern creation was resuscitating an antique branch of art. Such occurrences
recur throughout the Italian Renaissance, both in the visual arts and in other areas
such as music drama.
Our picture of this remarkable northern collector on the cusp of the Renaissance will lack one important feature unless we dedicate at least a few words to his
famous library; after all, he was a bibliophile perhaps first and foremost. He commissioned the best painters of his day to adorn a stately series of splendid manuscripts with his arms and mottoes, before then adding his own autograph ex libris to
his cherished possessions, and though the mottoes may remain forever inexplicable,
the manuscripts are now prized among the jewels of the libraries in Paris and Brussels. The duke’s freedom from the burden of erudition may have been a good thing.
It would perhaps not be entirely unjust to suggest that he was less concerned with
the content of his books — especially the scholarly ones — than with their artistic
design, which almost became an end in itself. With that, another medieval hurdle
has fallen. We get a clear sense of just how influential the Duke of Berry’s example
was from one of his distant eastern contemporaries, the German king Wenceslas*
(who was actually half French). Though there is precious little else to report on
his intellectual interests, we do know that Wenceslas took up the same trend in
Bohemia. The extant remnants of his library betray this quite clearly in the manner
of their artistic ornamentation, but especially in the mysteriously playful personal
mottoes that adorn them.
There is also a certain modernity, finally, in the duke’s dealings with artists,
particularly his favorites from Limbourg, who were granted considerable liberties. His connections with all manner of merchants and agents were broad indeed;
he expressly sent an adept intermediary, Salmon, to Italy, perhaps also to one of
the Limbourg brothers. The large carved altar at the Musée Cluny, which the duke
donated to the Abbey at Poissy, stems from the Venetian workshop of Baldassare
degli Embriachi.
It has already been said that the Duke of Berry’s collection, standing as it does on
the threshold of two eras, has a Janus face. A large portion of it can still be described
as a treasury in the traditional sense. Given what we know about his inclinations,
the precious stones rightly take pride of place. As one would expect, the stone most
treasured in the Middle Ages, the ruby, is not absent. The precious solitaires, and
likewise the pearls, had special pet names even then; thus we find a grain d’orge, la
grosse perle de Berry (barley grain, the great pearl of the Duke of Berry). One of his
largest, most valuable gems, the rubis de la nue (ruby in the nude), was acquired
from a Florentine merchant in 1409 for 7,300 gold guilders; another cost the enormous sum of 18,000 gold guilders. The creations of the goldsmiths follow on from
here; as we have already mentioned, though, these, as elsewhere, were the first things
to fall victim to the demands of the day and soon found their way into the furnace at
the mint. Possibly the only piece that was saved is the beautifully enameled gold cup
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
87
that is now at the British Museum.33 But one only really gets an idea of the splendor
and artistic perfection of such artifacts from the few pieces of old French metalwork
that do remain: the Golden Horse at Altötting, which can be traced back to Charles
VI; the jewel-encrusted Royal Goblet of Philip the Good; a delightfully dainty pendant with a pair of lovers in Vienna; and finally Charles the Bold’s votive offering at
Saint James’s Church in Liège. By contrast, the duke’s cabinet of tapestries was not
particularly impressive, especially when compared to the inestimable treasures once
owned by the kings of France and the dukes of Burgundy.
Above all, though, it is the odds and ends represented in the Duke of Berry’s
collection that lend it the full character of the later Wunderkammern. Here we
already find fine clocks (fig. 13);34 inlaid game boards for trictrac, checkers, and
chess; jewel-encrusted inkpots, even those enameled with the duke’s insignia and
mottoes; golden hot-water bottles (chaufferettes, scaldamani), the likes of which can
Fig. 13.
Burgundian clock, courtesy
of Herr M. von Leber in
Vienna, after a photograph
owned by him.
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SCHLOSSER
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
89
still be found in Italian sacristies, albeit in lesser metals; and lastly even “un petit
orinal de voirre garni et pendant á IV chaines d’or” (a small decorated glass chamber
pot suspended from four gold chains) (inv. no. A 265).
Conspicuous by its almost complete absence from the Duke of Berry’s inventories is weaponry; only a couple of pieces are included on account of their rarity,
one being an old sword with a silver handle and figures depicted in enamel. The
inventory does however mention numerous perfumes, musks, ambers, and incense
powders; these were kept in containers, often in the form of birds (sometimes caged
as so-called oissellez de chypre), fleurs-de-lis, sheep, or bears (fig. 14).35 A treasure
of another sort are the two bags of azure pigment (outremer — ultramarine), that is,
powdered lapis lazuli; this most expensive and highly valued color of the Middle
Ages is often mentioned in contracts. Here the painters and enlumineurs are borne
in mind with well-advised thrift. Another typical feature of the inventories is the
inclusion of antidotes; southern peoples still believe in them even today, and back
then, at a time when murders by poisoning were a regular occurrence, they were
certainly highly sought after. Pope John XXII gave the duke four narwhal tusks, for
these, too, were reputed to reveal poisons. Thus we encounter them time and time
again, all the way up to the Kunstkammern of the seventeenth century.
Such things bring us to the curiosities proper. The first thing to mention here
is a little Naturalienkabinett* containing all sorts of “wonders” such as ostrich eggs,
snakes’ jaws, porcupine needles, boars’ teeth, whale teeth, polar-bear fur, the obligatory “giant’s bone” (possibly that of a mammoth from prehistoric France), rare sea
monsters and all manner of fish, conchs, and so on. Carved coconuts, rock crystals,
and semiprecious stones with their mysterious powers are things we have already
encountered in the church treasuries.
Objects made from rare oriental materials can be classed with the same group. A
rosary of sea shells can perhaps be included here; the bowls and pots made of “porcelaine” bordered with precious metals do in fact appear to be East Asian ceramics,
isolated examples of which found their way to the Occident even then. Microscopic
artifices such as a Gospel of John on parchment the size of a silver coin and two
artfully turned ivory orbs containing a crucifix and a genteel couple playing chess
come under a class of curio that would subsequently become very popular indeed.
Though the various religious relics will not really have been considered as curiosities back then, we would probably tend to include them there, for they were often
quite peculiar: the blouse of Our Lady of Chartres, the chalice from which Christ
drank at the wedding at Cana, the engagement ring of Saint Joseph (where Robinet
cannot help but add the circumspect remark, “si comme disoit la Dame de St. Just,
qui donna ledit annel a Mgr. aux étrennes 1406”) (if it is as claimed by Lady de St.
Just, who gave the aforementioned ring to his Lordship as a New Year’s Day gift in
1406), and finally bones of the Innocents and even a milk tooth of the Blessed Virgin. Hence the sacred element still asserts itself with undiminished strength in the
midst of the profane world.
The title of having been the greatest patron of the arts in France prior to the
Renaissance is shared between Charles V and John, Duke of Berry. If a historical
Fig. 14.
Bear of “musk.”
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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Fig. 15.
Court goblet of Philip
the Good.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
personality of this sort is to be measured by sentimental standards at all, then this
accolade — the duke’s highest goal — casts many of his weaknesses in a more forgiving light. He may at times have oppressed the peasants and harassed his burghers,
though this was not uncommon among the grandees of his day; he may have been
too liberal in spending the gold that flowed in, leaving a heavily indebted household behind him; but the purpose to which he put this money was neither base nor
mean. Thanks to him, hundreds of artists and artisans were able to live and work in
freedom and comfort. With that — even if only a small portion of his rich collection
survived him — he did more for the spiritual wealth of his nation than all the good
kings of Yvetot, who left not a single self-propagating deed to posterity, neither for
better nor for worse.
What we know about the collections of the Dukes of Burgundy from their excellent and accurate inventories suggests that they were rather different, and essentially more backward.36 They may have provided a home for early Netherlandish art
(mainly painting and tapestry) at their luxurious courts at Dijon and in the towns
of Flanders and Brabant that became Burgundian at the end of the fourteenth century, and they may have had the most important masters in their service, but in
general their interest in collecting does not seem to have been either as strong or as
proactive as the Duke of Berry’s. Broadly speaking, their collections still have the
character of the old princely treasuries, albeit perhaps the most magnificent ever
to have existed — riches that were marveled at the world over and are now virtually
proverbial. Everything that had not been dispersed and destroyed in the lifetime of
the last of the Burgundian Valois, Charles the Bold, then passed to Maximilian I as
the (still vast) dowry of Charles’s daughter, Maria of Burgundy. Admittedly, Maximilian I had been under constant financial pressure and had soon pawned the most
precious of the “Burgundian crown jewels.” Many of them then turn up again in the
collection of Margaret of Mechelen (daughter of Maximilian and Maria), which we
have yet to consider.
The inestimable artistic and material value of the extant remains of the Burgundian treasury still leave an impression of unspeakable wealth. The majority of it is
owned by the Imperial House of Austria. Its inalienable crown jewels, still kept in
the Kaiserliche Schatzkammer in Vienna to this day, include the large agate Grail
and the distinctive Burgundian “alicorn,” or huge narwhal tusk; the famous Florentine diamond, fourth largest in the world; the magnificently ornamented “unicorn
sword” once owned by Charles the Bold; the wonderful “Burgundian Vestments”; the
splendid crystal goblet of Philip the Good (fig. 15); an ointment vessel carved from
a single emerald of over 2,400 carats (fig. 16); and many other, lesser pieces in the
Hofmuseum in Vienna, to say nothing of what remains in Bern, Nancy, and Liège.
Here we need hardly restate just how long medieval ways of thinking endured
in the North; just as the good old gabled houses of the Gothic peer out at us through
the Latinate [wälsch*] and antique garb of the so-called German Renaissance, the
people who lived in them kept to their historic habits and prejudices for a very long
time. One of the earliest German humanists, Hartmann Schedel from Nuremberg,
author of the famous Weltchronik (Nuremberg Chronicle), recorded for us a mass of
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SCHLOSSER
Fig. 16.
Burgundian ointment vessel.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
valuable information about works of art in northern Italy, where he studied. But he
is only ever interested in the remarkable nature of the content, never its form, never
the names or personalities of the artists — and this in a time and place that otherwise
displayed the liveliest interest in such matters.
A rather idiosyncratic position is occupied by the remarkable collection of
Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands (1480–1530), at her residence in
Mechelen. Given its character, one would actually tend to attribute it to the fifteenth century; Dürer already mentions it in his Netherlandish diary. In any case,
this princess — daughter of Emperor Maximilian and Maria of Burgundy, aunt to
Charles V, in whom Habsburg and Burgundian blood were united — spent her days
in a country that can be called Italy’s equal, the second source of modern art. This
may go some way toward explaining the extraordinary character of her art collection. There are two copies of the inventories, in Vienna and Paris. They were written
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
in French between 1524 and 1530 and have all the typical qualities of French documents of this kind: the descriptions are precise, reliable, and — since they include
artists’ names — extremely valuable.37 Our particular attention is drawn to the large
number of paintings, for which Margaret — herself an amateur artist — clearly had a
special predilection; alongside some remarkable contemporary portraits there are a
number of treasures of the first rank: The Arnolfini Portrait and the Madonna at the
Fountain by Jan van Eyck; panel paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, Rogier van der
Weyden, Hans Memling, Dirk Bouts, and Jean Foucquet; a remarkable painting by
Jacopo de Barbari; sculptures from the hand of Conrat Meit, who, like de Barbari,
was employed by Margaret; a relief, Eurydice with the Snake, apparently an early
work of Baccio Bandinelli (which today exists in different versions — among them
a German replica — in Paris, Naples, and Berlin); then a marble copy of the Boy
with Thorn and a considerable number of antique and modern bronzes; all manner of smaller treasures, such as a coffer decorated with depictions of animals in
that remarkable Burgundian enamel technique of which the Hofmuseum in Vienna
possesses a number of very rare examples; an enamel portrait of the Duke of Berry,
probably from his own collection; medallions, coins, and finally an impressive
number of precious illuminated manuscript miniatures, some of which are now in
Vienna. It is well worth noting how this gentildonna (genteel lady) from the beginning of the northern cinquecento made artistic interest the focus of her collection
and stood squarely on the national ground of the Low Countries; Italianate [wälsch]
and antique elements were minimal. And though curiosities are not completely
lacking, they stand very much in the shadows and are limited to rarities from the
Orient and, above all, the New World, which was inevitably a great source of interest
at that time; in the latter half of the century Montaigne also had a little museum of
Native American [indianische*] artifacts. In any case, the collection of the Regent
of the Netherlands remained almost unique in the North for quite a long time. It
anticipates the great princely art collections of the third and fourth generations,
those of Philip II, Leopold Wilhelm, and Charles I of England.
Broadly speaking, the typical conception of what can justifiably be called the
medieval northern collections of the earlier period did not change all that much as
the Renaissance movement made its way over the Alps at the end of the fifteenth
century. There were one or two private collections in sixteenth-century Germany
that stand up well to the Latinate collections: the famous print collection of the
Praun family in Nuremberg,38 for instance, and the Imhof Kunstkammer in the
same city.39 Still, the heyday of the great princely Kunst- und Wunderkammern of
Germany actually falls in the second half of this century and a large part of the next.
In this period they were virtually peerless; certainly there were no equivalents in
Italy. The outstanding examples are the collection of Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol
at Schloss Ambras, the Rudolfine Kunstkammer in Prague, the collection of the
Bavarian dukes Albrecht V and Wilhelm V in Munich, and finally that of the Electors of Saxony.
As the genealogy on pages 94–95 shows, Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol was
related, either by birth or by marriage, to almost all the princely collectors and art
93
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94
GENEALOGY OF ARCHDUKE FERDINAND
OF TYROL
Friedrich III,
Holy Roman Emperor
(1415–93)
Maximilian I,
Holy Roman Emperor
(1459–1519)
Philip I,
King of Castile
(1478–1506)
Ferdinand I,
Holy Roman Emperor
(1503–64)
Charles V,
Holy Roman Emperor
(1500–58)
Philip II,
King of Spain
(1527–98)
Anna,
Archduchess of Austria,
Duchess of Bavaria
(1528–90)
+
Albrecht (Albert) V,
Duke of Bavaria
(1528–79)
=
Wilhelm V,
Duke of Bavaria
(1548–1626)
Philip III,
King of Spain
(1578–1621)
Philip IV,
King of Spain
(1605–65)
Isabella Clara Eugenia,
Infanta of Spain
(1566–1633)
+
Albrecht (Albert) VII,
Archduke of Austria
(1559–1621)
Eleanor,
Archduchess of Austria
(1534–94)
+
Guglielmo Gonzaga
of Mantua
(1538–87)
Barbara,
Archduchess of
Austria,
Duchess of Mantua
(1539–72)
+
Alfonso II d’Este,
Duke of Ferrara
(1533–97)
Rudolf II,
Holy Roman Emperor
(1522–1612)
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95
Charles,
Duke of Burgundy, or
Charles the Bold
(1433–77)
Maria,
Duchess of Burgundy
(1457–82)
Margaret,
Archduchess of Austria
(1480–1530)
Giovanna
(née Johanna) d’Austria,
Grand-Duchess
of Tuscany
(1547–78)
+
Francesco I de’ Medici,
Grand-Duke of Tuscany
(1541–87)
Maximilian II,
Holy Roman Emperor
(1527–76)
Elisabeth,
Queen of Austria
(1554–92)
+
Charles IX,
King of France
(1550–74)
Albrecht (Albert) VII,
Archduke of Austria
(1559–1621)
Ferdinand II,
Archduke of Austria,
or
Archduke Ferdinand
of Tyrol
(1529–95)
Ferdinand II,
Holy Roman Emperor
(1578–1637)
Leopold Wilhelm,
Archduke of Austria
(1614–62)
Karl II,
Archduke of Styria
(1540–90)
Leopold V,
Archduke of Tyrol
(1586–1632)
+
Claudia de’ Medici,
Duchess of Urbino,
Archduchess of Austria
(1604–48)
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96
SCHLOSSER
lovers [Kunstliebhaber*] of the time.40 Against this background his historic silhouette stands out with unusual clarity and vividness. Great-grandson to Emperor
Maximilian I and Maria of Burgundy and great-nephew to Margaret of Austria
(much of her remarkable collection at Mechelen came to him), Ferdinand was born
in 1529 as the son of Emperor Ferdinand I, who had consolidated the Habsburg art
collections into one Viennese Kunstkammer in 1563. Ferdinand’s passion for collecting and his love of art were shared with his two brothers, Emperor Maximilian
II and Archduke Karl II of Styria, founder of the Kunstkammer in Graz. As nephew
to Charles V, Ferdinand was a cousin of the great Spanish patron Philip II. Through
his sisters he was brother-in-law to Albrecht V of Bavaria, Alfonso II (the last Este
of Ferrara), Duke William of Mantua, and Francesco de’ Medici of Tuscany. He was
uncle to Emperor Rudolf II; Wilhelm V of Bavaria; Albrecht VII, Governor of the
Netherlands and patron of Rubens; and Leopold V of Tyrol, who carried the traditions of Ambras forward with the help of his artistically inclined wife, Claudia de’
Medici, the widowed Duchess of Urbino. His great-nephews, though he never lived
to see them born, were the greatest Habsburg amateurs of the seventeenth century:
Philip IV of Spain and Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, Governor of the Netherlands.
Beyond this, he was connected by marriage to most of the old families with collections in Italy and France, placing him right at the center of a diverse, inspiring, and
prodigious art world. If posterity has cast him in a romantic light on account of his
early marriage to Philippine Welser, the daughter of an Augsburg patrician, this
union also brought him into contact with what was then the most important artistic
center in Germany besides Nuremberg (headpiece and fig. 9).
Ferdinand showed his artistic inclinations at an early stage, when still Governor
of Bohemia, even if it cannot be denied that in many things he followed the fashions
of the day. Like so many of the grandees of his time, he tried his hand at architecture.41 The highly original Star Villa [Hvězda] at Prague was built under his supervision and to his plans. This explains what Montaigne was getting at when he praised
him as a “grand bâtisseur et deviseur de telles commodités” (a great builder and
designer of such [garden] amenities). Indeed, a certain “Brunnwerk” sketchbook
from the former Ambras library (now at the Hofmuseum in Vienna) contains fountain designs by Italian artists as well as some in the hand of the archduke himself.
One of these was for a fountain in the Tiergarten at Innsbruck; the model — made
by Alexander Colin and cast by Hans Christoph Löffler — is still in the imperial collection today. The fact that he had to have his very own turners’ workshop tallies
with a fashion that was becoming increasingly widespread at the time, though this,
along with his chemical laboratory, belong to a later chapter. Far more idiosyncratic
and closer to actual artistic practice was his foundry at Ambras. Nor should we
forget the glassworks at Hall, which he set up on Venetian models in an attempt to
introduce the closely guarded art of Murano to the North — another instance of Ferdinand competing with contemporaries such as Wilhelm V of Bavaria.42 He went
to great lengths to find glaziers from the lagoons and had to try all sorts of things
before he finally managed to entice a Muranese craftsman with two children — one
legitimate, one not — to enter his service in 1574. Here, too, he took great pleasure in
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
97
Fig. 17.
Goblet of Archduke
Ferdinand of Tyrol.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
getting actively involved in the work, probably even making his own goblet on one
occasion. This goblet was then set in precious materials and has been preserved as
one of the jewels of the imperial collection (fig. 17). Glassware from Hall, of which
the Hofmuseum in Vienna now has the only substantial collection, is often both
original and individual in its forms and is characterized by a unique type of decoration that imitates what are now rather rare examples of Murano glassware, with
incised, gilded, and painted ornamentation (fig. 18). It would be going too far to
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98
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 18.
Products of the glassworks
at Hall in the Tyrol.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 19.
View of Ambras, from
Matthaeus Merian’s
Topographia Germaniae.
The Princely Schloß
Ambras
A. The great hall
B. The ball house
C. Summer house with the
revolving table inside
D. The cellars
E. Granary
F. Library
G. Stables
H. Kunst Kammer
I. Armory
K. Roman antiquities
L. Pages’ quarters
M. Loggia, with the large
pieces below
N. Animal park and
pleasure gardens
O. Royal kitchens
name all the Germanic and Italian [wälsch] artists whom Ferdinand employed, but
our picture of this man of many interests would remain incomplete were we not
to mention that he was also actively involved in the world of music and theater,
had an allegorical comedy published at Innsbruck in 1584, and that his court musician Giovanni Buontempo assembled a Parnassus musicus Ferdinandeus containing,
among other things, compositions by Monteverdi.43
Ferdinand chose to keep his collection at Schloss Ambras, a castle near Innsbruck
supposedly dating back to Roman times. He received it as a gift from his father, the
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
99
emperor, in 1563 and made it over to his beloved Philippine just a year later. Originally quite an unprepossessing building, the castle was enlarged and improved by
the construction of a number of extensions; these can
be seen in the engraving from Matthaeus Merian’s Topographia Germaniae (fig. 19; see also fig. 96). But until
Philippine’s death in 1580 the main body of the collection remained at the palace in Innsbruck; Ferdinand
only seems to have taken matters into his own hands
once Ambras had been left orphaned and desolate by
Philippine’s passing, at which point he started planning his “museum” and brought all his artistic treasures
together in one place. These were accommodated in
the buildings around the lower court, in the shadow
of the High Castle. As Merian’s engraving shows, two
long wings of the main building contained the armory
and the Kunstkabinett*. Appended to the armory was a
lower building with external niches, which still shelter
a number of Roman milestones from the surrounding
area. The library adjacent to the Kunstkabinett was an
impressive enough structure, though situated rather strangely by our standards, for
there were stables on the ground floor and the attic served as a granary (figs. 20, 21).
With these artistic treasures in place, Ambras had become one of the major
attractions for all the aristocrats and scholars who passed through the Tyrol on their
tour de monde.44 Montaigne, for instance, made a point of visiting Ambras on his
way to Italy, even if he had nothing good to say about his reception; the archduke
Fig. 20.
View of Ambras [circa
1908], after a photograph
by O. Schmidt in Vienna.
Fig. 21.
View from the courtyard at
Ambras, after a photograph
by O. Schmidt in Vienna.
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100
SCHLOSSER
had spoken very ill of the French on that occasion, apparently because one of his
precious emeralds had been stolen in transit through southern France. Others were
more fortunate and were shown the full extent of the owner’s hospitality. Here we
ought to mention his shrine to Bacchus and the amusing ceremonies he presided
over, coarse though they were by contemporary standards: the delicately decorated
Fangstuhl*, the grotesque glass tankards, and the revealing entries in the drinking
books are all still in the imperial collections.
The history of the museum after Ferdinand’s death shall only be touched upon
briefly here. His eldest son and principal heir, Charles, Margrave of Burgau, was
unlike his father; he had no legitimate offspring and thus felt compelled to sell off
the whole collection as early as 1605. It went to the head of the royal family, Emperor
Rudolf II, for 170,000 guilders. But since the stipulations of Ferdinand’s testament
were respected, the collection remained at Ambras, where its size and value were
augmented by the Tyrolean archdukes, especially Leopold V and his wife Claudia
de’ Medici. It seems it was Claudia who brought Antonio Rosselino’s beautiful relief
of the Virgin over the Alps in 1626. In its wonderful Florentine baroque frame, this
relief adorned the chapel at Ambras until 1880. The demise set in with the end of
this line in 1665. Emperor Leopold I, who inherited Ambras at that point, was not
as interested in its maintenance as the local princes had been. The primary concern
for this patron of scholars and founder of the Deutsche Naturforscher-Akademie
was his beloved Hofbibliothek in Vienna; his librarian, Peter Lambeck [Lambecius],
was immediately dispatched to Ambras to fetch a large number of printed works
and all the manuscripts he could lay his hands upon — the first time anything had
been removed from the historic collection. Still, a number of manuscripts evaded
him and these now adorn the imperial museums as the last vestige of the prestigious library at Ambras. After that, Ambras sank into a slumber like the princess
in a fairytale; the park became overgrown, the collections were neglected, and the
halls — without a princely couple to hold court — fell into disrepair. The collection
was seriously imperiled during the Franco-Bavarian occupation of 1703; many of
the treasures had already been packed into boxes and would certainly have been
carried off had it not been for the Inntal peasants who prevented their abduction by
scuppering the Bavarian boats. One can easily imagine how much was lost or damaged and how the whole was brought into disorder as a result of the occupation. The
progressive centralization of the Viennese collections, particularly under Charles
VI and Maria Theresa, entailed further losses. Carl Gustav Heraeus took what he
needed for the newly established coin cabinet, while Joseph Hilarius Eckhel incorporated the cut stones into his collection of antiquities, thereby laying the foundations for a collection that has few equals even now. Lastly, a considerable number of
paintings were transferred to the imperial picture gallery, and in 1801 almost all the
antiquities were moved to Vienna too.
During the Napoleonic Wars, Ambras suffered the same sad reversals of fortune it had already endured a century earlier. From 1796 on, the collections were
perpetually being packed up and moved from place to place; when the Tyrol was
surrendered in 1805, it was the renowned historian Josef von Hormayr who saved
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
the Ambras collection from the fate of being carried off to Paris. Nevertheless, the
French did requisition a number of precious French suits of armor — including that
of Francis I, which, as a work belonging to the national heritage, Napoleon was particularly keen to possess — before taking them to Paris as the property of the nation,
where they can still be seen today. Many other things were lost. A fine statuette of
Judith disappeared at that time; she bore the signature of Conrat Meit of Worms,
the abovementioned court sculptor to Margaret of Austria, and was listed in the
Ambras inventories right up to the end of the eighteenth century. She can now be
found in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich. All this only showed that
the collection — which remained an impressive one — was not safe at the isolated
and rather neglected castle; thus Francis I had it transferred to Vienna in 1806 and
exhibited it in the Lower Belvedere in 1814, the year of the Congress of Vienna. Only
now did it awake from its sleep; judiciously organized, cataloged, and augmented
by excellent men such as Alois Primisser and, some time later, Eduard Freiherr von
Sacken, it started to have an impact on life and scholarship. It really was the awakening of a sleeping beauty: things long since thought lost came to light; in his translation of Benvenuto Cellini, Goethe was one of the first to notice that the famous
saliera (salt cellar) he describes was still well preserved in the imperial collection
in Vienna. The rest of the collection’s history cannot be recounted here, though it
retained its historic name for decades, as did Schloss Ambras, which was restored
in the 1850s and later refitted as a museum. The venerable Ambras collection lived
on through the Romantic period and, thanks to the work of Sacken, incorporated
a number of ancient German monuments; but its former size was also significantly
diminished in this period as certain artifacts — chiefly the curiosities of natural
history — were donated to specialist collections. Ultimately the collection was merged
with the holdings of the Kaiserliche Schatzkammer and moved to its new, almost
overly opulent home on the Burgring in Vienna; its former name and its historic
character are now all but lost. A mere vestige of times long since passed, this was the
tribute it had to pay to more modern, scientific views.
For all his personal involvement, it goes without saying that Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol was neither able nor inclined to administer his extensive art collection
alone. One of his custodians was a Dutchman by the name of Gerard van Roo: originally a chorister, he was the librarian and keeper of the Kunstkammer at Ambras
from 1590, where he began writing the Annales Habsburgicae gentis (printed at Innsbruck in 1592) and where he died in 1589. More noteworthy in this context is Jacob
Schrenck von Nozing, Ferdinand’s secretary from 1565 and archducal consul from
1588. It was perhaps somewhat boastful to have referred to himself as “almost the
only collector” in all three departments of the collection, but then almost all the
relevant correspondence, even with the artists, passed through his hands and he did
edit the large illustrated description of the Ambras armory, albeit under the constant supervision and direction of the archduke himself. It was the first catalog of its
kind to emerge from a great collection, through the press, and out into the world.
Incidentally, the archduke also had a short inventory of his armory printed while he
was still alive (Innsbruck: Joh. Bauer, 1593).
101
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102
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 22.
A page from Jacob
Schrenck von Nozing’s
Armamentarium Heroicum
Ambrasianum (Nuremberg:
Christoph Weigel, 1735),
showing Palgrave Philipp
of Bavaria.
The armory was Ferdinand’s real pride and joy; he never tired in his efforts to
obtain suits of armor, tournament weaponry, and other military souvenirs, particularly those of his famous contemporaries, and to this end he maintained a voluminous correspondence that now proffers interesting insights into his way of thinking.
Of course, many people saw it as an honor to have their iron effigies in this pantheon,
among the “honorable society” at Ambras, as Ferdinand liked to call it. Besides these
things, the archduke’s various connections enabled him to acquire no small number
of older, historically valuable pieces. Their reliable and well-established provenance is
precisely what gives the House of Austria’s current collection of weaponry its incomparable historical value, for the core of the collection remains the old armory from
Ambras. It is the foremost collection of its kind, even in comparison with its sister
collection, the Armería in Madrid.
It was well known that the archduke was preparing a magnificent illustrated
publication of his favorite collection, and it was eagerly awaited, but Ferdinand himself would not live to see it completed. Published by Johannes Agricola in Innsbruck,
it only came off the press in 1601, a worthy monument to German Renaissance book
design, with 125 folio engravings executed by Dominicus Custos after drawings by
Giovanni Battista Fontana, and at the same time the finest possible literary monument to the great princely collector himself. A German translation appeared just
two years later, in 1603 (fig. 22).
Our picture of this Habsburg friend of art would be incomplete if we were
not to dedicate at least a few words also to his library, for it was one of the most
important of its time. After all, it was a seat of learning, and it was this library that
facilitated the publication of the abovementioned annals by Van Roo. It contained
nearly four thousand works, almost all of them in handsome leather bindings. In
line with the then common practice, they were divided according to theological,
juridical, medicinal, and historical faculties, along with a class corresponding to
the scholastic liberal arts. The library was especially rich in all sorts of precious
manuscripts, for the archducal inheritance from the House of Luxembourg had
included the remnants of the remarkable library of King Wenceslas I. These magnificent volumes, bound in the French taste and adorned with rich imagery and
curious mottoes, are now counted among the treasures of the Hofbibliothek. Ferdinand’s library contained an extraordinary number of German manuscripts, which
were especially well represented in a substantial gift from Count Wilhelm von
Zimmern. The most outstanding of these is the Heldenbuch compiled for Emperor
Maximilian I (now in the Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum). This work has preserved
a number of early German poems for us, the most well known being the only existing manuscript of the Gudrunlied. Other manuscripts here include the allegorical
historical works by Ferdinand’s great-grandfather Emperor Maximilian I: Teuerdank, Weißkunig, the Turnierbuch Freydal, and the lengthy volumes of the interesting Zeughausbücher. Nor should we forget the impressive print collection, which
is highly instructive as to the nature of these old collections, for it was organized
according to subject matter and most of the prints are still in their old albums. One
of these is the Kunstbuch Albrechten Dürers, a remarkable collection of engravings
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
103
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SCHLOSSER
and woodcuts, uniquely valuable for the fact that it contains a number of autograph
drawings by that great Nuremberg artist. It is quite characteristic of Ferdinand’s
interests that the majority of the precious manuscripts, particularly those adorned
with images, were kept not in the library but on show with the albums of engravings in a chest in his Kunstkammer. Conversely, the greater part of the archducal
picture gallery was housed in the library, though this had never been particularly
outstanding, especially in comparison to what was owned by other princes at the
time. Portraits and other keepsakes were the main constituents of this part of the
collections. Ferdinand’s interests were predominantly historical and antiquarian;
he never seems to have been overly concerned with establishing a proper picture
gallery. Generally speaking, though, the library gives us a foretaste of future Kunstkammern, for it contained — quite typically for the period — all manner of rarities and curiosities, including a not insignificant collection of minerals. The walls
were decorated with all sorts of weapons, which again entirely corresponds to the
princely sensibilities of the time.
We shall now enter the third, most significant and diverse section of Ferdinand’s
museum: the “great Kunstkammer.” This was the official title given in the inventory
that was drawn up in 1596, at Ferdinand’s passing, and it is this inventory that constitutes the oldest and most detailed source we have on the Ambras art collection
as a whole. Aside from the more accurate and expert descriptions of the armory,
though, it is regrettably also rather curt, ambiguous, and composed in that simple
domestic jargon to which we have already once referred. While this makes most of
the items difficult or even impossible to identify, the inventory nevertheless gives
us an accurate sense of how the collection was organized and displayed when the
archducal benefactor died.
There were eighteen large pine chests standing back to back (some of these are
preserved at Ambras) and then two further, lateral chests. These contained the collections, which, broadly speaking, were organized first by material, then by technique. It is quite characteristic that the essentially rather superficial classification
of the old Ambras collection (it could hardly satisfy modern requirements) was not
completely effaced by the more recent display in the new Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum — and this despite its changing fortunes, its transfer to the imperial capital,
and its merger with the other holdings. The maintenance of this sort of historical continuity might have proved even more beneficial in other areas; surely some
inconspicuous little corner could have been found for at least a partially preserved
display of the natural rarities and curios. As it is, we have been deprived of a historical ensemble of no small cultural interest. These old curiosities have no historical
impact unless they are seen together; they are naturally completely lost among the
generally far more impressive exhibits at the Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum, where
they are now kept.
Let us now take a closer look at the content of the individual chests as they
stood in 1596. The first chest was painted blue and had various “places” for a large
number of artfully carved, enameled crystal vessels set in gold. There were several
in the form of imaginary creatures, dragons, and so on, and these were especially
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
105
cherished. A number of these crystal vessels from Ambras, mostly works by Italian
artists and some still preserved with their old gold-studded leather cases, are now
in the imperial collections, the crystal “egret” mentioned in the inventory being
one of them (fig. 23). This chest also contained a number of valuable vessels made
from semiprecious stones; such ornaments had always been especially typical of
the princely treasuries and were usually received as gifts from allied noblemen such
as the Duke of Mantua, Emperor Rudolf, and so on. The most valuable of these
tributes were also kept here: the gift that King Charles IX of France gave to Archduke Ferdinand for representing him at his proxy marriage to Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria, the emperor’s daughter, in 1570. Besides Cellini’s famous saliera,
this included a wonderful onyx jug adorned with precious stones and gold enamel,
whose companion, a splendid onyx goblet, is still in the Galerie d’Apollon at the
Louvre; then there was a golden cup with an effigy of Archangel Michael, his armor
shimmering with black diamonds, and lastly a crystal bowl. All in all, a veritably
regal gift. Its value was duly admired by the Venetian envoy Marcantonio Michiel
when he reported back to the Doge, and it remains one of the greatest treasures in
the imperial collections (fig. 24). The musket-wielding bear also survives; it is “aus
Fig. 23.
The “Crystal Egret” from
Ambras.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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106
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 24.
The wedding gifts of
Charles IX of France [salt
cellar by Benvenuto Cellini
(Italian, 1500–71),
1540–43, on left].
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
lauter Pisam, inwendig ganz golden, mit Diamant, Rubin und Perl verziert” (made
entirely of musk, all gold inside, adorned with diamonds, rubies, and pearls) (see
fig. 14). Such trinkets coated with fragrant stuff were popular at the courts of the
Middle Ages.
The second (green) chest contained all manner of artistic metalwork in gold and
silver, a large portion of which is preserved in the imperial collections. Many of these
objects date back to earlier times, the “royal cups” for instance: the Werdenberg
Cup and, above all, the Cup of Emperor Friedrich III, which bears the inscription
Aquila Eius Juste Omnia Vincet (His eagle justly conquers all). These are extremely
rare examples of a technique that flourished in the fifteenth century and are listed
in the inventory as “Netherlandish enamelwork” (fig. 25). There is much here that
recalls the early treasuries. One small centerpiece (“credenza”) with a pretty Gothic
base and fifteen “asps’ tongues” (sharks’ teeth) may also date back to Friedrich III
(see fig. 3). Here we again find griffins’ claws, rare tusks of exotic animals in equally
strange settings, such as the one [on the far right] with the arms of Montfort (fig. 26);
a “Native American [indianische] nut like a jester’s cap” in a silver setting (fig. 27); an
ostrich egg; likewise a “Native American [indianische] snail,” rhinoceros tusks, and
the like; a silver writing set with imprints of shellfish and other little creatures, that
sort of thing being particularly popular at the time (one need only think of Wenzel
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107
Fig. 25.
Burgundian enamel
goblets [Cup of Emperor
Friedrich III, late 15th
century, at center].
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 26.
Griffins’ claws.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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108
Fig. 27.
Jester’s cap.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 28.
Seashell utensils from
Ambras [combination of
candlestick and sea devil,
late 16th century, on far
right].
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
SCHLOSSER
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
109
Jamnitzer or even Bernard Palissy); a complete set of gilded silverware encrusted
with seashells; and Augsburg pieces from Ferdinand’s era, namely the handsome
and original combination of a candlestick and a sea devil (fig. 28).
The third (red) chest was almost entirely taken up by a very peculiar collection,
which is unique in its class: the so-called Handsteine*. Though these do occur elsewhere, they nevertheless have something specifically Tyrolean about them and are
quite typical of the spirit of that era. Handsteine were particularly fine mineral samples, usually of argentite and predominantly originating from the pits in Schwaz.
They were given to regional rulers on special occasions as gifts from the miners’
guilds (fig. 29). One still sees such samples immured in the old miners’ buildings in
the Tyrol. Those from Ambras, almost all still extant, are very skillfully carved into
all sorts of histories showing Calvary, the Mount of Olives, and so on, while some
take the form of little mines and castles; this and their often quite splendid silver
gilding lends them considerable artistic value. The most outstanding and art historically interesting piece is unfortunately lost; like so many of these things, it probably
found its way to the furnace. This particular Handstein took the form of a little
mountain with a number of wild and tame creatures frolicking on its slopes, artfully
crafted in silver. Its loss is all the more regrettable for that fact that it was probably
identical with a large silver centerpiece that Archduke Ferdinand had ordered from
Wenzel Jamnitzer in 1556.45
These Handsteine show the character of the Kunstkammern of that era in particularly sharp relief, for they combine an interest in the products of nature with a
pleasure in seeing them artistically shaped and presented. There are clear echoes of
Fig. 29.
Tyrolean Handsteine
from Ambras.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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SCHLOSSER
Fig. 30.
Musical instruments
from Ambras.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
the medieval sensibility here. Right alongside these, in the same chest at Ambras,
there were further, unmounted ore samples, mostly from Spain and the borderlands;
we know that the archduke went to some lengths to extend this part of the collection
from the fact that he asked the King of Spain for similar Handsteine in 1577 (Jahrbuch
Reg. XIV, 10672). Geological samples and mined stones of this sort do occur in other
collections of that era. The Kunstkammer at Dresden, for instance, had amassed a
small collection of carved Handsteine by 1587.46 But these may well have been a gift
from Archduke Ferdinand, and this seems all the more likely since one such piece at
the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden still bears the monogram (C.V.) of the same Tyrolean goldsmith who was responsible for a large portion of the Handsteine at Ambras.
The fourth (white) chest contained another collection that has been preserved,
diminished but intact, at the Hofmuseum: the musical instruments (fig. 30). The
main piece here is a splendid zither, richly carved and painted with a delightful little
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
111
Fig. 31.
Old musical instruments
from Ambras [including
bass cittern, late 16th
century, at center].
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
figure of Lucretia Romana on the scroll. Ferdinand had it made by the then famous
lute maker Girolamo (de Virchis) of Brescia. The inventory also lists one of the rare
“échiquiers” here, a combination of games board, organ, and keyboard instrument.
This example is probably the instrument in the imperial collections, made in 1587 by
Anton Meidling from Augsburg. A quintet of strangely shaped racket-type instruments — they are referred to as five “Tartöld, wie Drackhen geformiert” (Tartölden
formed like dragons) and were perhaps used at masquerades and the like — is also
still extant in its old box. And this part of the collection provides further evidence
of the archduke’s historical interests, for the “große seltsame Lauten” (strange large
lute) of the old inventory is none other than the remarkable bass lute from the Hofmuseum and certainly dates back to the fifteenth century (fig. 31); a somewhat similar instrument can be seen in the fourteenth-century painting of the Adoration of
the Lamb in the Chapel of the Holy Cross at Karlštejn near Prague. Among the wind
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112
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Fig. 32.
Mathematical instruments.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
instruments there is a remarkable ethnographic antique in the form of a large “Allgau bugle” (or alpenhorn) wrapped in raffia. This is also preserved and evidences
the princely collector’s attentiveness to the sort of primitive folk relics that we tend
to regard very highly these days. We might just add that the collecting of rare, historic, or particularly ornate musical instruments was a popular pursuit throughout
the Renaissance, both in Italy and in the North.47
The fifth (“skin-colored”) chest housed another self-contained collection that no
Kunstkammer could be without (fig. 32). These were the fine clocks and astronomical, optical, and mathematical instruments such as astrolabes, compasses, peepboxes,
telescopes, and automata. Two of the extant automata are a mechanical fanfare with
ten little trumpeters and a drummer who perform a strangely whirring sinfonia
(fig. 33), and a bell tower automaton with various comic figures and an ending that
has some very crude fun with one of the favorite stories of our forebears (fig. 34).
Both were gifts from the Bavarian dukes Ferdinand and Wilhelm V to their uncle
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113
in Ambras. They were probably both made in Augsburg, the main center of production for mechanical toys of this kind (fig. 35). The fine clocks also correspond
to the sensibilities of the time, for besides marking the hours, they also had some
rather strange ways of indicating the entire calendar, the movement of the planets,
and so on (fig. 36). Two large astronomical clocks from Ambras are preserved in their
richly embellished wooden housings, one made for the archduke in 1584 by Johannes
Schönemann in Constance, the other, according to the old inventory, in Bohemia.
This collection from Ambras, now united with the historic holdings of the former
Physikalisches Kabinett*, still forms a discrete part of the Kunstgewerbe (applied art
collections) at the new Hofmuseum today (fig. 37). Besides their considerable artistic
value, these objects constitute a significant cultural and historical testament to human
acumen and ingenuity. Tradition has it that much of this collection used to belong to
Tycho de Brahe; and here we certainly ought not to forget Albrecht von Wallenstein’s
remarkable horoscope, which was known to Goethe’s circle in Weimar (fig. 38).48
Fig. 33.
Mechanical fanfare
from Ambras.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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114
Fig. 34.
Mechanical bell tower
from Ambras.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 35.
Galleon with mechanical
fanfare, possibly from the
collection of Rudolf II.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
SCHLOSSER
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Fig. 36.
Augsburg clock by David
Buschmann (German,
1626–1701), with an ivory
figurine of Death by
Christoph Angermeyer
(German, d. 1633), early
17th century.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 37.
Musical automaton,
Augsburg.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 38.
Albrecht von Wallenstein’s
horoscope.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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118
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 39.
Cabinet with figurine
of Death.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
The next, sixth or “ashen,” chest is an even better reflection of contemporary
collecting. It contained nothing but works in stone, little sculptures in alabaster,
Kelheim stone, and the like, including the extant figurine of Death in his ebony
casket (fig. 39), carved after Andreas Vesalius’s anatomy (1543) and belonging to a
long and popular tradition of morbid imagery that stretches all the way from Spain
to the North. There was a “carved Venetian duke,” that is, Doge Pasquale Cicogna
(d. 1595) with his heraldic animal, the stork (fig. 40); several mosaics; and finally, a
mixed lot of curious minerals, both raw and finished. Among these were bowls of
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
119
Fig. 40.
Doge Pasquale Cicogna.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
serpentinite stone “like those from Meichsen (Mexico),” “toadstones, eagle stones,
and star stones,” stone from Mount Lebanon, and lastly animal and plant fossils.
Curiosity and ingenuity are also prominent in the next, seventh chest. It contained all manner of ironware: strangely decorated and ingenious locks [Kunstschloss] “that no key can open” (fig. 41), two iron “choke pears” (extant), and all
sorts of tools “laid out on black boards” (three of them, sculptors’ and gunsmiths’
tools, are extant). The “full metal seat made of ornate little pieces” could be the
famous Fangstuhl from the Bacchus shrine at Ambras; it is mentioned in a number
of historical travel journals (fig. 42).
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Fig. 41.
Kunstschloss.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 42.
Fangstuhl from Ambras,
second half of 16th
century.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
In the eighth chest were the precious illustrated manuscript miniatures mentioned above: the cimelia from Wenceslas I and Maximilian I, then the albums from
the print collection, and additional extras in the form of relevant rarities and curiosities such as a little book puzzle [Vexierbüchlein] and the like. Scrolls with pictorial
representations of the processions, tournaments, and masquerades at Ferdinand’s
court were also kept here.
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The ninth chest. The artifacts in this container all come under the category of
curiosities produced overseas: works and objects relating to the peculiar technique
of hummingbird-feather mosaic. The Native Indians of the New World were still
using the colorful plumage of tropical birds to make feather works such as these
well into the Spanish colonial era. The real showpiece is quite a remarkable historical specimen: the splendid feather ornaments (“Moorish hat,” “fan,” and “shield”)
now kept in the ethnographical collection at the Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum
in Vienna, likewise the famous syenite axe, traditionally ascribed to Montezuma I
of Mexico, from the imperial collection of arms and armor. In fact, there is documentary evidence that these pieces, thought to have been among the sacrificial
vestments worn by priests, came to Emperor Ferdinand I in 1524 as a gift from his
predecessor, Charles V, before they were subsequently inherited by Ferdinand’s son
(figs. 43–45).49 Of the other hummingbird mosaics that were made in the Christian
missions, several have survived: a lappet, images of the saints, and so on. In the
instructive manner typical of such collections, the skins of three “birds of paradise”
were also exhibited along with them.
Fig. 43.
Feather shield with coyote
from Ambras, ca. 1500.
Vienna, Weltmuseum.
Fig. 44.
Fan from Ambras,
16th century.
Vienna, Weltmuseum.
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123
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SCHLOSSER
Fig. 45.
Feather cloak [headdress]
from Ambras, ca. 1515.
Vienna, Weltmuseum.
The next chest was a transverse chest and contained all sorts of works in ivory
and related materials. Here one encounters an “olifant” (still extant), an inventory
item now familiar from the older treasuries; cofanetti from the long-lived Embriachi workshop in Venice; a charming little ivory box from the French Middle Ages
(with an extant copy of the novella La Châtelaine de Vergi); and many other “old
Frankish pieces” among the small-scale ivory sculptures (fig. 46), a form that had
always been popular in the North and enjoyed a period of renewed appreciation
around this time. It goes without saying that there were also one or two samples of
the highly esteemed art of fine turnery. A particular curiosity are the strange West
African horns, most of which were brought to Europe by the Portuguese. They are
not uncommon in the old collections (alongside spoons and similar articles), but it
was only after Benin became more accessible that people again became interested in
them and found out where they were from.50 The interest they generated back then
is evident both from an illustration in Michael Praetorius’s Theatrum instrumentorum of 1620 (pl. xxx, fig. 4) and from the fact that Joachim von Sandrart dedicated
an excursus to them in his Teutsche Academie (2:89 in the 1679 edition) (fig. 47).
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125
Fig. 46.
Artworks in ivory.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 47.
Indian fan from Ambras
and West African horns
and spoons.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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Fig. 48.
Glass figurines from
Ambras.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
A second “crosswise chest” was dedicated exclusively to curios. Here we find a
piece of wood that turned to stone when a peasant nonbeliever tried to split it while
cursing; a piece of the rope with which Judas hanged himself, looted from Saint Peter’s
by Sebastian Schertlin during the Sack of Rome; a pine cone from one of the cedars
of Lebanon that was used to build the Temple of Solomon; stag antlers that sweated
blood when they were hung from a Jewish house on Good Friday; and so on. Profane
relics of this curious kind are quite typical of the period, for although humanistically
educated, it was still utterly mired in superstition and belief in wonders. Then there
were the antique finds, which in this context served as examples of heathen idolatry:
glass and metal cinerary urns from the graves of the cremated, a couple of idols,
and a number of other things that can perhaps be put down to the rather advanced
counterfeiting business that existed back then: “ain Staines geheus, wie ain Thurn
geformiert, so vor jaren zu abgötterei gebraucht worden, in dem undern Thail ain
metallene änten und in dem obern sein die rauchopfer verricht worden” (a stone case
made in the shape of a tower, the sort used for idolatry years ago: there was a metal
duck in the lower part, the incense offering being made in the upper).
The tenth chest is of less interest; it merely contained all manner of alabaster
objects and vessels. The eleventh (black) chest, with the glassworks, most of them
likely to have come from Venice, contained nothing particularly remarkable other
than the interesting, extremely rare, and extant collection of Murano quincaillerie,
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
127
little ornamental pieces in the form of flowers and all kinds of animals, rosaries,
chains, and so on, all blown on the torch using a technique that survived Murano’s
demise; such articles are still being exported to barbarians and savages to this day.
Along with all these came the extremely rare and valuable figurines of three sword
swallowers from the Venetian comedy (fig. 48); their only surviving equivalents are
the group of so-called Morra players once owned by Karel van Mander III, now at
the Rosenborg in Copenhagen, a similar collection to that at Ambras.
The twelfth chest, with the works in coral (fig. 49), a material that garnered
esteem and high prices, then as now, for its strangeness and rarity. Most of the surviving pieces have come back to Ambras, which only goes to show how little interest
people have for these things today. One very fine example also comes under the
heading of curiosities, though it is not originally from Ambras: the ostrich-egg goblet illustrated here, a sixteenth-century work from Augsburg, formerly held in the
Schatzkammer (fig. 50). The inventory lists entire boxes and centerpieces depicting
Golgotha, mythological figures, and the like. Besides these there were the actual
“cabinets.” Still popular in the following century, and quite in line with contemporary
tastes, these present themselves as little collections of artfully arranged seashells and
other sea creatures. One splendid example, though it belonged to Rudolf II rather
than Ferdinand, is the Kabinett in the imperial collections, now returned from its
strange odysseys in Sweden (fig. 51). Raw corals in curious forms and colors were
also well represented at Ambras.
The thirteenth chest contained the not inconsiderable collection of small bronzes,
a colorful mixture of antique and modern works. The naïveté of the descriptions is
especially striking here. A figure of Mercury is described as follows: “ain gegossene
mannsbild, siczt auf aim metallen stöckhl, hat fligl an füeßen und ain poret mit flugl
auf ” (a cast bronze man, sitting on a metal block, has flights on his feet and wears a
cap with wings). There are many splendid pieces from Ambras in the outstanding
Fig. 49.
Works in coral.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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128
Fig. 50.
Augsburg ostrich-egg
goblet.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 51.
Cabinet of Rudolf II.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
SCHLOSSER
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129
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130
Fig. 52.
Venetian bronze [Venus]
from Ambras, late 15th
century.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
SCHLOSSER
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131
Viennese collection of bronzes. For instance: the delightful and almost modernlooking statuette of Venus without arms (fig. 52), created for lovers in imitation of
antiquity; an intoxicated young satyr; an original by Giambologna; an outstanding
German door pull with a Lucretia Romana as well as one of the rare German tin casts
from the sixteenth century, again depicting Venus; and finally the female nude on a
mat, probably a Paduan bronze from the workshop of Andrea Riccio.
The fourteenth chest was devoted to ceramics. Of particular interest here are a
large number of “porzelanaschisselen” (porcelain dishes). To go by the description
in the inventory, these must have been pieces of East Asian porcelain, which had
become quite familiar by that point and were even being imitated in Italy. Indeed,
from the seventeenth century on, porcelain was a regular export to Europe, especially
via the Dutch factories. And in fact the imperial collections have a small number of
very fine dishes and bowls (along with several remarkably old enameled pieces and
the like) from the former Ambras collection (fig. 53). As a highly unusual example of
the early imitation of East Asian decoration, the inventory mentions a tabletop that
was given to Ferdinand by his son Cardinal Andreas, though by 1596 this was kept
in the library next door and no longer in the Kunstkammer itself (fig. 54). Then we
Fig. 53.
East Asian objects
from Ambras.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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132
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Fig. 54.
Tabletop from Ambras.
Vienna, Österreichisches
Museum für Angewandte
Kunst (MAK).
find vessels in terra sigillata, European and seemingly East Asian (“Indian”) faience
wares. The lighthearted elements are not lacking here either: an extant puzzle jug by
Konrad Leitgeb (1571), for instance, and the remarkable Tyrolean majolicas, comic
drinking vessels made for Ferdinand in the 1580s by Christoph Gandtner from Innsbruck, a now unique collection which, with the exception of one jolly tankard, was
not exhibited as part of the Kunstkammer at that time (figs. 55, 56). There were,
however, several vessels and funerary urns along with their contents, and these will
probably have included some from prehistoric times; one such piece is mentioned
as having been found in Silesia. Oddly enough, there appears to have been almost
no Italian majolica; it seems the large present collection only came to Ambras with
Claudia de’ Medici in the following century.
The fifteenth chest was very diverse in its contents. Above all it contained part of
Ferdinand’s important coin collection, which included both Greco-Roman “antique
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133
Fig. 55.
Tyrolean majolica by Christoph
Gandtner (Austrian, d. 1605).
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 56.
Tyrolean majolica by Christoph
Gandtner (Austrian, d. 1605).
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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135
pennies” as well as more recent coinages. Their value can best be judged by the fact
that the French physician and antiquarian Charles Patin praised them very highly
in his travel journal of 1673, putting them on par with those in the Parisian coin
cabinet. The coin collection and the adjacent collection of gemstones (roughly two
thousand of them), which Ferdinand had acquired from the Montfort heirs — one of
the highlights was the picture signet ring of Alaric the Visigoth, allegedly found in
the Tyrol — were both housed in richly decorated cabinets (“writing desk” or scrittoio), of which there are still several in the imperial collections in Vienna. The finest
of these, which formerly contained the Roman gold coins, is an ebony cabinet in the
shape of a temple and adorned with numerous small allegorical figures in gilded
bronze, an excellent example of the prevailing architectonic taste in the Augsburg
workshops of the time (fig. 57).
It strikes us as rather strange that one drawer of this little coin cabinet should have
housed a complete and utter curiosity, namely a mandrake couple (root of the common mandragon), with male and female neatly bedded down in blue taffeta; another,
similar specimen that allegedly belonged to Rudolf II is still held at the Hofbibliothek
in Vienna (see fig. 77).51 Otherwise this chest also contained more of those Schränkchen* and Kabinette from the late German Renaissance, with their typical ebony
embellishments and silver hardware (fig. 58). These in turn contained all manner of
good things, artifacts made from fragrant materials, such as those we have already
come across, bijoux and pendants in the sumptuous manner of the goldsmiths active
at the court of Rudolf II, most of them featuring outlandishly shaped irregular pearls,
Fig. 57.
Archduke Ferdinand’s
coin cabinet, ca. 1580.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 58.
Augsburg Schränkchen,
16th century.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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136
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 59.
Jewelry from the era of
Archduke Ferdinand of
Tyrol and Rudolf II.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
which were as popular then as they are unpopular now. The dainty “venedigisch gundele mit dem magnifico und seiner cortesana” (Venetian gondola with the magnifico
and his courtesan) is also still extant (fig. 59). Lastly there were other kinds of miniatures: hat medals, many of which were extremely precious; enamel objects including
a remarkable, extant, and very early medal from southern France; and finally all manner of fine turnery and one instance of those ever popular microtechnical gimmicks,
a carved cherry stone.
The sixteenth chest provides another unique insight into Ferdinand’s mentality. It contained a large number of remarkable weapons, antiquarian and rare pieces,
particularly those of “Indian” origin (including the abovementioned syenite axe of
Montezuma), hunting equipment, and various other things, among them a heathen
sacrificial knife. The fact that Turkish and West Indian weaponry happen to have occupied a special place in a collection belonging to the progeny of the House of Habsburg
is not something that requires further explanation here. Finally, we ought not to
forget the swords and hats that were consecrated by the popes. These are still exhibited
in their own special vitrine in the imperial collection of arms and armor (fig. 60).52
The seventeenth (“skin-colored”) chest will also have made a rather motley
impression and was quite rightly called the “Variokasten” (miscellany). The majority
of things collected here were ethnographical rarities of West Indian, East Indian,
Turkish, Muscovite, and certainly also East Asian origin. The old inventory of 1596
describes several Chinese hanging scrolls; two of these pieces are noteworthy for
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
137
their age and, along with a woven mat from Ambras, are now in the ethnographical collection at the Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum in Vienna (fig. 61).53 Of the
two remarkably old Indian fans in openwork ivory that were formerly in the imperial collections, at least one can still be traced back to Ferdinand’s era (see fig. 47).
Besides all that, this chest also contained all manner of exotic and “early Franconian” clothing, historical curiosities such as Emperor Friedrich III’s hunting knives,
statuettes of Saint James from Bergpech, much like those brought home by pilgrims
returning from the remote Santiago de Compostela (fig. 62), then remarkable old
playing cards and other toys too, things very much in the vein of what we would
now call practical jokes: vexing puzzles, a little box of snakes on springs — labeled on
the lid as “ain herrlich schen kunststuckh” (an artwork of marvelous beauty), and so
on. Much of this has been preserved. For instance, one curious gimmick, probably
from Nuremberg, a city that traded in such trinkets even then, was a box of all sorts
of creepy crawlies that simulated life and movement when the rather ghastly container was opened in an unsteady hand. Last but not least, this “miscellany” housed
the wax reliefs; the archduke owned a number of excellent pieces, most originating
from the city famed for such works: Venice. Among the extant pieces there is a very
fine relief of Leda and even a portrait of the young Ferdinand himself, probably
made by Francesco Segala of Padua (fig. 63).
The last, eighteenth chest contained wooden sculptures. The fact that these
works were privileged with their own section is quite comprehensible in a region
Fig. 60.
Consecrated hat, gift
of Pope Gregory XIII
to Archduke Ferdinand
of Tyrol [shown with
sword].
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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138
SCHLOSSER
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
139
Fig. 61.
Chinese hanging scrolls
from Ambras, 16th
century.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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140
Fig. 62.
Statuette of Saint James
from Santiago de
Compostela early 16th
century.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 63.
Wax portrait of Archduke
Ferdinand, [by] Venetian
[artist Francesco Segala
(Italian, d. 1592)].
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
SCHLOSSER
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
such as the Tyrol, a traditional home of wood carving. Particular attention is to be
drawn to a very large series of wooden statuettes representing the saints of the House
of Habsburg; they were doubtless made after the well-known series of woodcuts by
Leonhard Beck. In addition, this chest also seems to have housed the remarkable
model book by a fifteenth-century German master that was published by the present author some years ago.
141
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Fig. 64.
From Mira calligraphiae
monumenta by Georg
Bocskay (Eastern
European, d. 1575),
1561–62.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Quite a significant portion of the Ambras Kunstkammer was housed in drawers
and trunks: the main thing here — besides maps, miniatures, calligraphy books (fig.
64), and so on — was Ferdinand’s collection of historic portraits, which are now conveniently distributed among the exhibition rooms of the imperial numismatic collection. Much like the collection of arms and armor, this is an area in which Ferdinand’s
historical interests found particularly clear expression. It also shows him following
one of the fashions of the day. Such collections had already been started in Italy some
time earlier; the most famous of all was that of Bishop Paolo Giovio in Como (1552),
particularly noteworthy for art history because it provided the inspiration for Giorgio
Vasari’s Lives of the Artists. But it was exemplary in other respects too. The portrait
collection of Cosimo I (begun in 1550) was derived from it, and this in turn provided
the inspiration for Ferdinand’s own portrait collection, not to mention the closely
related collection of Duke Philipp II of Pomerania.54 The arrangement of Ferdinand’s
collection also followed that of its ancestor: the archducal House of Austria takes
pride of place (following the Ambras family tree for the most part), then come the
Holy Roman emperors, the kings and princes of various lands with a special group
of oriental portraits, and then the worthies arranged in classes according to a longstanding tradition from the old biographical works of Italy. The portraits of famous
jurists are copies made after Marco Mantova Benavides’s Paduan gallery of engravings from 1566. Another characteristic category of portraits, which, having started out
with a specific series of Renaissance medals, has enjoyed constant popularity right up
to more recent times, also seems to have been intended for the collection at Ambras:
a gallery of beautiful women; the court painter Francesco Terzio is mentioned as
having been commissioned to make one such work. Here, too, Ferdinand saw to it
that the expansion of this collection proceeded with due diligence; it was arranged
according to a clear plan, in a clear and convenient format (in 1596 it is listed as being
kept in eight leather trunks). He was supported in this by Van Roo and, later on, particularly by Schrenck von Nozing, but Ferdinand never tired of writing letters for the
sake of this collection. Ultimately, when he died, he had managed to amass almost a
thousand items, certainly the most significant collection of its time. These unbroken
sequences of portraits — and such completeness is rare — now constitute a historical
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
source of no small value. The copies of lost originals and a number of pieces by the
hands of good masters (such as the series of Saxon Princes by Lucas Cranach the
Younger) also lend the collection a degree of interest for art history.
Last of all, we should mention all the natural wonders that festooned the Kunstkammer. These were very much in line with contemporary tastes. The walls and ceilings were hung with a heady mixture of stuffed snakes, crocodiles, birds, abnormal
antlers, monstrosities, prehistoric animal bones (the inventory of course calls them
giant’s bones), the blade of a saw shark, and so on. And we ought not to forget the
antlers of a mighty twenty-two pointer that grew right through an oak tree. These
are still at Schloss Ambras today and have always been a particular attraction for the
curious tourist. Such things make up the typical trappings and ambience of Ferdinand’s museum.
We have dwelt on the Ambras collection for so long because it is the richest and
most compendious example of a Kunst- und Wunderkammer that still permits
splendid illustrations. Ferdinand’s brother Archduke Karl II of Styria also created a
Kunstkammer at his residence in Graz, and it is particularly noteworthy for its rich
collection of musical instruments.55 But it is only really of local significance, and in
1765 its holdings were transferred to Vienna, where much of its remarkable content
is located to this day. In terms of its arrangement, the Ambras collection does have
some very close relatives in the collections of the Bavarian dukes Albrecht V and
Wilhelm V, who were of course connected to Ferdinand by bonds of blood and
neighborly friendship. Already at Ambras there had been a clear attempt to systematize the collection; it is far more rational and far better organized than most of its
contemporaries, better even than the famous Kunstkammer of Rudolf II in Prague.
The collections at Munich, of which there is an inventory from 1598, are primarily
interesting because they were the subject of one of the oldest known methodologies of such museums.56 It was written by a Netherlandish physician, Dr. Samuel
Quiccheberg, and published as a little quarto at the printing house of Adam Berg in
Munich in 1565. Historical interests predominate; we might be pleasantly surprised
by the consistent consideration of specific national histories, regional histories, and
folklore, but we ought not to expect rigorous scholarly principles from the man,
least of all art historical principles. Those two Bavarian dukes may have done much
of the groundwork for what would later become such a famous gallery, but at that
time one could scarcely speak of a history of artists in the North, whereas the Italians had been writing them for almost two hundred years.
Quiccheberg divides his theatrum sapientiae into five classes with various subsections (inscriptiones). The first is purely historical and never strays too far from
the person of the founder himself. Represented here, then, are historical tables, family trees, family portraits and pictures of associated people, and general and specific maps, especially those covering the realm of the donor — it is quite typical that
Quiccheberg, a northerner, was concerned first and foremost with princely personages, and private citizens only secondarily. Then there are illustrations of towns,
buildings, public exhibitions, tournaments, all sorts of processions, animals (again,
especially those from the immediate environs), and finally of machines.57
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SCHLOSSER
The second class roughly corresponds to the content of the Kunstkammern; its
inscriptions include statues, all sorts of artistic works, coins and medals, models by
goldsmiths and other craftsmen, and finally exotic contraptions, vessels from excavations, and those peculiar to the country of the donor. The third class contains the
Naturalienkabinett covering all three kingdoms, including the anatomy of man. It
is instructive to see that artistic and scientific interests still ran in parallel and interacted with one another even here. Just as Pliny the Elder had treated the history of
artists as an appendage to the lore on metals and rocks, here, too, the illustrations
of animals and plants (right down to silk embroidery), and of gemstones in their
artificial settings, follow on directly from the pure products of nature. The fourth
class is technological, essentially a throwback to old scholastic teachings on the artes
mechanicae. It contains musical, mathematical, and astronomical instruments; writing and painting equipment; all sorts of mechanical tools and machines (even flying machines); tools for sculptors, turners, goldsmiths, founders, carpenters, and so
forth (we have already come across this sort of thing at Ambras); surgical instruments; equipment for hunting, bird catching, and fishing; games; and, last of all,
remarkable ethnographic objects, the clothing and artifacts of foreign peoples.
The fifth and final class roughly corresponds to the modern category of the picture gallery, along with an associated print collection. It encompasses all manner
of paintings, prints, and drawings. But the prevailing historical interest becomes
immediately evident in the individual inscriptions and is quite typical of Quiccheberg’s museology — a remarkable monument to the peculiar and often contradictory
mentality of northerners.
A far, far more colorful and adventurous picture is proffered by a third famous
Kunstkammer of the late Renaissance: that of Emperor Rudolf II at the Hradčany in
Prague.58 It would be impossible to give any suggestion of the diverse and ramified
ways in which this ruler — who remains a typical representative of his time despite
his many pathological traits — was connected to the art of his day. But it would also
be unnecessary, for we can simply refer to Heinrich Zimmermann’s fine description
of Rudolf and his court, his artists, and antiquarians: Antonio Abondio, Jamnitzer,
Ottavio Miseroni, Adriaen de Vries, Bartholomaeus Spranger, Joseph Heintz the
Elder, Roelandt Savery, Jacopo Strada, and all the talented Augsburg and Nuremberg masters who were obliged to produce his many precious showpieces — some of
which are still extant in the imperial collections (figs. 65, 66). Particularly in his later
years, which were overshadowed by internal and external misfortune, Rudolf became
completely immersed in his collections; as with John, Duke of Berry, before him, the
political affairs of the head of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation would
melt away into nothing when it came to the acquisition of some new, rare piece; there
are plenty of vibrant accounts that attest to this. His adept and usually reliable agents
were posted everywhere to inform him about movements in the art collections; with
money, kind words, and sometimes gentle pressure he was able to secure many valuable pieces, especially at the minor Italian courts. As a major collector of paintings, he
was second to none in the North: among his treasures were Antonio da Correggio’s
Io, Danae, Leda, and Ganymede; Albrecht Dürer’s Feast of the Rosary and Martyrdom
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
145
Fig. 65.
Ornate vessels from Italy
and the Netherlands, late
Renaissance.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 66.
Coconut-shell vessel by
Anton Schweinberger
(German, ca. 1550–1603)
of Nuremberg, made for
Rudolf II, 1602.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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146
SCHLOSSER
of the Ten Thousand; paintings by Raphael, Titian, and Hans Holbein the Younger;
bronzes by Giambologna and Leone Leoni; and antiques such as the well-traveled
Ilioneus and the remarkable lost Bed of Polykleitos, once owned by Lorenzo Ghiberti
and universally acclaimed during the Renaissance. Where originals proved elusive
he was more than willing to make do with copies by skilled artists. In this sense his
proclivities seem quite modern; still, our picture of him as an art lover is distorted by
certain other idiosyncratic features. Some of these are to be attributed to his anomalous predispositions, while others can be put down to the time and place in which he
lived. One becomes all the more aware of this on sampling the famous collection on
the Hradčany. When Cardinal d’Este admired it in 1604 there was a hint of equivocation — one might have expected it from this refined Italian — in his judgment: “the
whole hoard is worthy of its owner.” Rudolf II was certainly not on par with the
likes of Philip II or Leopold Wilhelm in his understanding of art, however often he
exhibits the traits of the serious amateur, as he did when he acquired the Feast of the
Rosary and certain works of contemporary art. One of the latter, a relief by Giambologna only recently rediscovered in the imperial collections, had eluded his grasp
for some time before it finally arrived from the court at Modena, at which point he
insisted on carrying the coveted work into his room with the characteristic cheer of
the avid collector. But in general — even leaving aside his peculiar mindset and the
idiosyncrasies it engendered — he belongs to that ever-numerous class of collectors
who tend to prize above all things those that are rare, hard to obtain, and preferably
also shrouded in the nimbus of antiquity itself. He was by no means free from the
bad habits of the collector either. As sovereigns go, he had a considerable stomping
ground at his disposal and made good use of it by “borrowing” precious manuscripts
indefinitely. Such was the fate of the illustrated poetical work De laudibus sanctae
crucis by Rabanus Maurus from Kloster Fulda.
The subsequent history of Rudolf ’s Kunstkammer — how it was pillaged by
Bavarians, Saxons, then Swedes, how its holdings were gradually diminished and
plundered until it was finally finished off by auction in the Josephine era — is too
tragic and has been told too many times to need rehearsing in any detail here; we
prefer to pass over this sad chapter.
As for the particulars of Rudolf ’s collection, the historical sources are unfortunately very poor indeed. The inventory hunted down in Sweden by Beda Dudik was
made in haste before the plundering of 1648, and though it is instructive as to the
general arrangement of the collection in the seventeenth century, it actually throws
very little light on anything else; it is terse, its form is coarse, and its expressions and
conception are worthy only of a peasant. The list covering the eight hundred paintings in the sumptuous picture gallery is quite typical and would have been virtually
inconceivable in Italy. Not a single artist’s name is mentioned, and the descriptions
of the works, which only consider the content, contain some very vexing interpretations and misrepresentations. The full inventory published by Zimmermann is
older, far longer, and names names where paintings are concerned, but otherwise
it is not much better. Still, it does provide some guidance as to the state of the collection, which will not have looked all that different during the emperor’s lifetime.
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
It was something of an exaggeration, though not an entirely unjustified one,
when one modern author spoke of Rudolf ’s collection as a Barnumesque museum,
for this collection was indeed a colorful patchwork with no pretention to the sort of
methodological aspirations one finds in the Kunstkammern of Ambras and Munich.
The number of curiosities and oddities was far greater, and these were more thoroughly mixed up with the actual works of art; the overall impression must have been
quite haphazard and bizarre — and yet this was what Rudolf and many of his contemporaries will have wanted. There can be no better indication of the main source
of pleasure at that time than the travel journal of a Weimar delegation to Dresden
in 1654, which is printed in Johann Joachim Müller’s Entdecktes Staats-Cabinet (Jena
1771, eighth opening, 220f.). It describes the Kunstkammer of the Saxon Elector at
some length, though these learned gentlemen seem to have had eyes and praise for
nothing but the curiosities, the customary muddle of natural and artistic rarities
(such confusion was particularly prominent here of all places), or, in other words,
the things they tended to call art in that milieu. For there is little evidence of them
having paid much attention to artistic things in the proper sense; the name Cranach
is barely even mentioned in passing, and then only as a compatriot and with reference to two portraits.
The Rudolfine Kunstkammer was securely housed in four vaulted rooms at the
Hradčany in Prague. A series of cupboards, thirty-seven in number — the inventory calls them “Almare” (coffers) — contained the smaller artifacts, while the larger
pieces (Kabinette, clocks, and so on) were placed on a long central table, not to
mention the other chests and tables, the drawers of which were packed with all sorts
of odds and ends. Old and new sculptures were placed on top of the cupboards,
the walls decorated with unusual antlers, and the paintings — rather than forming
a proper, orderly gallery — were distributed among these and the other rooms and
halls, right up to the emperor’s writing chamber. As one also sees in David Teniers’s
pictures of galleries, many things were simply propped up against the walls and
left standing on the floor. This sort of arrangement renders any form of enumeration virtually impossible, though a few general points can be made. In almost every
cupboard there were “Indian” [indianische] curiosities alongside ancient Egyptian
faiences, which goes to show that there was a predilection for such things even
then; this thread runs from the hieroglyphic dabblings of the fifteenth century right
through to the empire period. Then there were strange naturalia* such as “Donnersteine” (thunderstones), two boxes of magnets and iron nails — “sollen von der
archa Noe sein” (supposedly from Noah’s Ark) — monstrosities, a receptacle with
mandrake roots, “fünf indianische helfenbeinene Jägerhörner” (five Indian hunting
horns in ivory), probably West African, and so on. There was a large contingent
of wax relief sculptures — hardly surprising given that two of the most skilled and
famous artists in this area were employed by Rudolf: Antonio Abondio and Alessandro Abondio — and works of fine turnery; a number of these, apparently from
the hand of the emperor, are now in the Danish collection at the Prinsens Palais
in Copenhagen. But there follows “ein zart velo, welches in Vngern in Irer mayestät Läger vom Himmel gefallen” (a delicate veil, which fell from Heaven into His
147
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148
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
149
Majesty’s camp in Hungary); works in semiprecious stones with costly settings (we
know how much the emperor prized such things and sought to convince the best
artists to come and work for him: Paulus van Vianen, for instance, whose beautiful
jasper ewer now adorns the Hofmuseum in Vienna); landscapes in mosaic; automata (fig. 67); and clocks, of which there are still some fine examples left. It would be
tiresome and futile to go on; many of the particulars will be discussed in our general
characterization of the Kunstkammern.
Though not a Kunstkammer in the strict sense, the Kaiserliche Schatzkammer
in Vienna must be mentioned briefly here. Its colorful early history and its many
partitions and assignments need not be gone into; suffice to say it seems to have
stabilized around the time of Emperor Ferdinand II. But what is noteworthy is the
division into sacred and profane treasuries, which has been maintained right up to
the present. The profane treasury in particular has always been a proper Kunst- und
Wunderkammer, even if the treasures and crown jewels of the imperial house lead
to a distinctive physiognomy. One need not look to the highly conservative England
to convince oneself of the fact that certain long-outmoded forms have been passed
right down to the present by the agency of historic courts such as this. Until the
organization of the new museums, the Kaiserliche Schatzkammer in Vienna was in
fact one of the best examples of a private princely museum in the medieval mold.
It is no wonder that its reputation was well established; it belonged to a line that
bore the preeminent crown among the princely houses of Europe. Hence there are
a number of old descriptions, some of which were printed as guides for inquisitive
travelers. We shall just cite the one published by Raspe in Nuremberg in 1771.59
Of the remaining German Kunstkammern, we shall briefly mention only the
most important here. Inventories and other data about them can be found in the
museographies by Michael Bernhard Valentini and Caspar Friedrich Einckel, which
will be mentioned later on, and in Sandrart’s Teutsche Academie.60
One of the oldest is the Kunstkammer in the Residenzschloss in Dresden. There
is an inventory from 1587, excerpts of which have often appeared in print.61 The
keeper of the Kunstkammer, Tobias Beutel, described it in a short Latin and German work. The precision of the title is quite characteristic of its time: Cedretum
oder Churfüstlicher sächsicher stets grünender hoher Cedernwald auf dem grünen
Rautengrunde (The cedar forest, or the Elector of Saxony’s ever-green forest of high
cedars on the green checkerboard) (Dresden, 1671) (fig. 68). Its guiding spirit was
illuminated not only by the abovementioned reports of the 1654 delegation from
Weimar but also by the labels that the worthy custodian gave to the seven individual
Kammern*: 1. Mechanical tools. 2. Precious drinking vessels. 3. Treasure chests and
fine paintings. (All Beutel has to say about the works under this heading, the core of
a now famous gallery, are these meager words: “Lastly, this cabinet, like the others,
is also interspersed with fine paintings, old and new, by Albrecht Dürer, by Lucas van
Leyden, by Lucas Cranach, by Tintoretto, Titian, Rubens, and other fine painters.”
Such was the standing of literary Germany in 1671!) 4. Mathematical contrivances.
5. Fine mirrors. 6. Natural objects, rare and beautiful. 7. Sculptures in stone, metal,
and other materials, as well as turned and mechanical art objects and clockworks.
Fig. 67.
Automaton [featuring
Diana on a Centaur by
Hans Jacob I. Bachmann
(German, 1574–1651),
1602–6].
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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150
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 68.
Title page of Tobias
Beutel’s Cedretum
(Dresden: Berg, 1671).
The Elector of Saxony’s
ever-green forest of high
cedars on the vale of green
checkerboard,
or:
a brief introduction to the
high regalia of the Elector
of Saxony /
namely:
The outstanding
Kunstkammer and other
extremely valuable and
incomparably important
things belonging to the
Serene Elector here at the
Residence in Dresden,
In indebted gratitude to
God for the benefactions
and treasures bestowed on
the Serene House of the
Electors of Saxony
and
Humbly dedicated to my
most gracious lord the
Serene Elector of Saxony /
and in the service of noble
travelers from home and
abroad.
All briefly described in the
Latin and German
languages / and placed in
the Arboretum mathematicum under the protection
of the ever most gracious
and most graciously
attained imperial and
electoral privileges /
by
Tobias Beutel, Art
Chamberlain to the
Supreme Elector of Saxony.
_______________
Printed in Dresden by the
heirs of the Berg family in
the year 1671.
From 1834 the Kunstkammer was called the Königliches Historisches Museum,
but in official parlance the individual sections are still referred to as the armory and
the Kunstkammer, their departmental titles. The collections isolated at the beginning of the eighteenth century still exist in Dresden even now: the Königlicher
Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon, the famous Grünes Gewölbe, the GewehrGalerie, and the Mineralien-Kabinett, though the latter has also modernized its
title somewhat.
The Berlin Kunstkammer dates back to the beginning of the seventeenth century.62 With some modifications it, too, survived right up to recent times and was
only completely disbanded in 1875. Then we should at least mention the collection
at Schloss Salzdahlum, which forms the foundation of the present ducal museum at
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
151
Fig. 69.
Frontispiece from Adam
Olearius’s Gottorffische
Kunstkammer (Schleswig:
Gottfried Schultz, 1674).
Braunschweig,63 as well as the Kunst- und Naturalienkabinett at Kassel, described
by Valentini (Museum Museorium II, 14) and owned by the Landgraves of Hesse.
The ducal Gottorp Kunstkammer also enjoyed a certain regard. It was founded by
Duke Friedrich of Schleswig-Holstein and installed in 1651 by his court antiquarian,
the well-traveled Adam Olearius from Holland, who published a detailed description of the collection under the title Gottorffische Kunst-Kammer (Gottorp Kunstkammer), a second edition of which appeared in Schleswig in 1674 (fig. 69). For the
most part it contains details of the ethnographic and natural rarities collected by
the physician Paludanus at Enkhuysen on his travels through the Orient: costumes,
implements, foreign idols from Egypt to China, and so on. At this point it is little
wonder that attention was also turned to Nordic antiquities and curiosities. Thus
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152
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 70.
Arcimboldo (Italian, ca.
1526–93), Summer, 1563.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum
the collection contained runic calendars and idols from Greenland, but also Byzantine images of the saints from Russia. On the whole it was more of a Naturalienkabinett than an actual Kunstkammer. But among these natural artifacts there was
still a strong contingent of the customary bizarre objects; the four elements were
presented in the form of their representatives from the animal kingdom: a skink
for earth, a seahorse for water, a chameleon for air (it was thought to live on thin
air), and the salamander for fire, though its legendary fireproof properties were
already being repudiated. While “alicorns” do still occur, by this point Olearius
was well aware that they came from the narwhal. By way of compensation he also
mentions one northern animal that was supposed to fall from the clouds: the lemming. Such bizarre notions are a fitting context for the curious paintings “welche
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
153
Fig. 71.
Arcimboldo (Italian, ca.
1526–93), Fire, 1566.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
durch gemahlte Früchte die Zeiten des Jahres abbilden” (that depict the seasons in
painted fruits) (Olearius, plate V); fantastical compositions of all manner of flowers, fruits, and animals, probably from the hand of the same Milanese artist who
made similar fancies for Rudolf II: Giuseppe Arcimboldo. These paintings were
very much in the spirit of their time and eventually found their way from Rudolf ’s
Kunstkammer in Prague to their present location in the Viennese galleries. Philipp
Hainhofer saw some very similar “Schnakenköpfe” (funny heads) at Ambras and
Dresden. There is a detailed account of Arcimboldo in Gregorio Comanini’s dialogue, Il Figino (Mantua, 1591): he is said to have been very much in tune with the
sensibilities of the northern Renaissance and also took it upon himself to invent a
kind of color keyboard (figs. 70 and 71).
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154
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 72.
Frontispiece from
Ole Worm’s Museum
Wormianum (Leiden:
Elseviers, 1655).
From the far North we should also mention the Kunstkammer of the Danish
kings in Copenhagen, for this really was a collection of veritable rarities and we
still have a historic seventeenth-century description of it by Professor Oliger Jacobaeus.64 Even in their current cultural and historical setting, the remarkable and
expansive collections at the Rosenborg still provide an excellent sense of what a
historic Kunstkammer will have looked like, all the more so since certain sections,
primarily the glassware cabinet and the porcelain room, are still preserved just as
they were. Indeed, they are closely related to the former collections at Ambras.
It is quite comprehensible that this enjoyment of Raritätenkabinette did not
remain confined to princely circles. There are many printed descriptions that furnish us with textual and visual guides to the seventeenth-century collections of
wealthy private persons and scholars. A detailed list of these has been compiled in
the book by Klemm, which we have often cited (213–29). Many of them are listed
in the old museologies by Valentini, Einckel, and so on. Here we shall just mention
the oldest and richest of them, by a physician from Halle, Dr. Lorenz Hofmann,
whose catalog was published as early as 1625 (see Klemm, 213f.). Besides the usual
curiosities and rarities from all over the world, besides implements from the far
North and Russian images of the saints (not absent here either), besides a “glass
fortune” recalling the famous oriental glass goblet of Edenhall, one is especially
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
struck by a small collection of paintings and a very interesting collection of ceramics. Finally, we should also mention the museum of the Copenhagen physician Dr.
Ole Worm. Though primarily a Naturalienkabinett, it also contained many ethnographic objects, as well as oriental, Roman, and Nordic antiquities. His Museum
Wormianum, a catalog illustrated with fine engravings and woodcuts, was published
in 1655 under the imprint of Elzevir in Amsterdam (fig. 72). The collection of the
Augsburg patrician Philipp Hainhofer ought not to be forgotten here either, if only
for the accounts of this man of many pursuits and his overall standing within the
artistic life of the times.65
It is safe to say that during the Counter-Reformation, and especially the seventeenth century, Rome and Italy achieved world domination for a second time, at
least in the arts. And it is sufficiently well known that around this time the larger
picture galleries of Germany, in emulation of Italianate [wälsch] models, began to
elevate and detach themselves from the Kunstkammern. Still, they maintained very
close connections to them. In many cases the galleries actually came to be overshadowed by the Kunstkammern, as at Ambras and Munich. Strangely enough,
the repercussions of these things can be discerned even in the person of one of the
most important collectors, the true amateur of the House of Austria and the real
founder of the gallery in Vienna, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (d. 1662), who, as
Governor of the Netherlands from 1646 to 1656, was exposed to some of the richest
and most intensive artistic impulses of his age. This is quite evident from the subsequent installation of his collection at the Stallburg in Vienna, the details of which
are preserved for posterity in Ferdinand Storffer’s pictorial inventory of 1720, now
in the Hofbibliothek in Vienna (figs. 73, 74). The natural and artificial objects that
filled its coffers still managed to present a united front, and even if this splendid and
well-conceived collection did consist primarily of artworks in the modern sense, an
element of the peculiar was by no means lacking.66 Here we shall just draw attention
to one detail that strikes us as rather curious. When Franz van Stampart and Anton
Joseph von Prenner published their Prodromus in Vienna in 1735 (figs. 75, 76), a book
of engravings that set out to reproduce selected treasures from the Stallburg, they
included a magical trinket of the most childish kind among their illustrations of the
most sublime works of art (see fig. 77). It is something akin to the mandrake familiar
to us from German legend: a glass prism or, put bluntly, an imitation smoky topaz
inset with a little black figure. It has now migrated — sic tempora mutantur — to the
storeroom at the Hofmuseum, but in the eighteenth century it was one of the main
attractions in the Viennese Schatzkammer and was always conscientiously noted in
the historical descriptions as a “spiritus familiaris in einem Glass, so ehemals von
einem besessenen ausgetrieben und in dieses glas verbannet worden, ist beweglich
anzusehen” (spiritus familiaris in a piece of glass, driven out of a man possessed and
imprisoned in the glass, to be viewed in motion). Thus the “Neu-vermehrte Beschreibung Der Kayserlich-Weltlichen Schatz-Kammer” (New, expanded description of
the imperial secular treasury), which was printed as an appendix to Johann Valentin Neiner’s Vienna curiosa & gratiosa (Vienna, 1720). Incidentally, the text of this
little book shows that the character of the medieval treasuries — with the precious
155
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156
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
Fig. 75.
A page from Franz van
Stampart and Anton
Joseph von Prenner’s
Prodromus (Vienna:
J.P. van Ghelen, 1735).
From top to bottom:
The scholars here wish
they had as many eyes as
Argus that they might draw
into their spirits the
manifold pleasures of this
treasure, knowing well as
they do of its weapons and
wonders; hence their
judgment is always thus:
Here one sees imperial
magnificence, and those
who lack sufficient imagination for it had better
withdraw before they
saturate their senses on
things that surpass their
knowledge and insight.
***
Astonishing things! Who
ever saw the like? The
masterpieces of the world
writ small on little sheets.
But the contents of this
little room do wonderfully
in place of the brush, in
place of the great
emperor’s treasure.
O, for a Phidias to whet my
steel and stylus! The king
of the muses has set even
me to poetry! So I shall
grave your art into metal;
your name shall be immortalized in rhyme.
Though laurel blooms not
from my brow, still my
hand shall not tire of the
task. You artists, this I
know: bright light often
breaks through dark
shadows all the more
favorably.
Fig. 73.
From Ferdinand Storffer’s
pictorial inventory of the
Wiener Galerie [Inventar,
1720–33].
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Fig. 74.
From Ferdinand Storffer’s
pictorial inventory of the
Wiener Galerie [Inventar,
1720–33].
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
And should the graver’s
steel sully your work, the
posthumous fame of your
art shall reach as far as the
sun travels and stand
forever in the book of
distant eternity.
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158
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
159
Fig. 76.
A page from Franz van
Stampart and Anton
Joseph von Prenner’s
Prodromus (Vienna:
J.P. van Ghelen, 1735).
Behold here the great
masters of the School of
RUBENS, who brought art
to such heights that one
can almost feel the spirit
of life in them, paintings
left to posterity by a dear
hand as inventive as it was
studied.
next to the curious — had been preserved almost unchanged up to that time.
We recall here the colorful aspect of Rudolf II’s Kunstkammer on the Hradčany.
As head of the Holy Roman Empire, and despite the absurdities entailed by his
abnormal mental constitution, in a certain sense Rudolf is the ideal representative
of collectors’ tastes in the German North. Though sometimes as in a distorting mirror, his Kunstkammer provides a faithful reflection of the inclinations of his age,
which was transfixed by the strange, the wonderful, the bizarre. And though these
things may seem almost pathologically distorted in Rudolf ’s alchemical, astrological, and spiritualist flights of fancy, they and their like are nonetheless the mark of
that period, a period that compelled Johannes Kepler to produce horoscopes and
natal charts against his will and better judgment. A little gilded bronze bell from the
imperial collections, with wild, cabbalistic figures and symbols, has been associated
with Rudolf ’s invocations of spirits (fig. 77); when one takes a closer look at the
colorful content of Kunstkammern such as that in Prague and many others, it really
is as though one were peering into the laboratory of Faust and Wagner, for they are
almost incomprehensible to us now. Every supposed or real rarity and wonder of
nature has its place here, right down to the abnormalities and lusus naturae; every
kind of fantastical contrivance has its proper place, from the perpetuum mobile to
the mandrakes, divining rods, and little Venetian hats. But alongside these things,
as evidence of the ever more strident advance of modern science, we find scientific
instruments and all manner of apparatus, telescopes, globes, and quadrants, all of
them ennobled by the generous adornments of highly advanced forms of decorative art; they are noblemen in comparison to the sober objectivity of the modern
researcher’s companions, the beauty of which lies in their precision and expediency.
This juxtaposition and intermingling of both sham and genuine science and art is
generally characteristic (fig. 78). Filled as it was with the strangest quirks and fancies, this age was also a period of the most earnest scientific work, a period in which
The pupils and heirs to
VAN DYKE are due almost
equal renown; [Erasmus]
QUELLINUS, {Jan]
BOECKHORST and
[Cornelius] SCHUT deserve
no less a prize. The great
[Jacob] JORDAENS says it
is praise enough to be
esteemed not a master but
a student of RUBENS.
They cannot all be
included in these lines.
Some must be left to other
pages. But tell me,
RUBENS, is it not greater
that these were your pupils
than that you are a master?
Fig. 77.
Magica from the age of
Rudolf II.
From left to right: the
devil in a glass, mandrake
roots, and personal bell
of Rudolf II.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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160
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 78.
Frans Francken the
younger (Flemish,
1581–1642),
Kuriositätenkabinett,
1636.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
the encyclopedic idea really came into its own as a late repercussion of a scholastic
way of thinking that had sought unity in the blueprint of the universe. This was the
era of the great thesauruses and all kinds of historical compilations, their mighty
tomes encompassing a quantity of knowledge that, though often baroque in its
abundance, is still useful and still used to this day. It was the era of philological
works such as those of Joannes Georgius Graevius and Joannes Fredericus Gronovius, of historical compilations by the Bollandists and the Maurists, and above all
by Jean Mabillon. But it was also the age of Kepler and Galileo Galilei, an age that
saw an upsurge in the natural sciences and the spirit of inquiry. Visual artists such as
Leonardo da Vinci, who like Dürer and Palissy gave his compatriots the first model
of exemplary scientific prose, made no small contribution to this spirit, though it
found its concentrated embodiment in the polyhistor genius of Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz. One by one, the medieval barriers that had been erected in the name of
a disregard for earthly things began to fall. Soon after the Earth’s limits had been
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
161
pushed back and fabled imaginary lands replaced by a real and no less wondrous
world, Nicolaus Copernicus demonstrated the untenability of the geocentric perspective and directed the human spirit into the apparently endless expanse of the
universe. But the fantastical formations of old refused to go down without a fight,
for they were deeply rooted and protected by powerful authorities. As early as the
end of the Middle Ages, certain observations of exotic caged animals had shaken the
myths of medieval natural history, fables that had been associated with mystic and
religious doctrines from the widespread and much read bestiaries; they were now
faced with the victorious adversary of empirical science and the rigors of experience
itself. Francis Bacon entered the fray as the standard-bearer of inductive scientific
method. Even so, the seventeenth century still troubled itself with experiments that
set out to prove or disprove various old theories, such as the notion that bees came
from cadavers (fig. 79).67 But the fact that people appealed to empirical tests at all
shows that there had been a decisive shift. Hence the old “wonders” diminished in
significance or took on new empirical significance. When Emperor Leopold visited the old Ratsbücherei [Consuls’ Library, now the Stadtbibliothek] in Nuremberg
with Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, he was shown an inventory item that was common to such scholarly chambers: a unicorn tusk — at which point he remarked that
it was in fact the weapon of a fish and that he himself possessed an outstanding
Fig. 79.
From Michael Bernhard
Valentini’s Museum
Museorum (Frankfurt:
Zunner & Jung, 1704–14).
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162
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 80.
Pommerscher
Kunstschrank [destroyed
in Second World War, but
contents salvaged], 1617.
Berlin,
Kunstgewerbemuseum.
old example in his own treasury. But then he was also the patron of the Academia
Naturae Curiosorum.
Under these circumstances it is no wonder that this encyclopedic intellectual
tendency, bound up as it was with a peculiar heritage of medieval scholasticism and
learned allegory, exerted a considerable influence on both the art and the art collections of the North. But there was much that was German in this abstruse science
and its speculative spawn. Its effects can be felt even in the applied arts. No better
example of this are the Kunstschränke*. Quaint as they may seem to us now, they
were popular during the German Late Renaissance. The diligent and highly skilled
cabinetmakers of the time became intoxicated with all the allegorical trappings of
the columnar orders of antiquity, which had been systematized by Italian architects.
These craftsmen not only felt and acted like architects, aesthetes, and philosophers;
they even took up the pen so as not to withhold their ideas from contemporaries
and successors. Germany was inundated with a huge wave of systematic instructional treatments [Lehrgebäuden], erudite cabinetmakers’ treatises, booklets on fine
columns, turnery, and all manner of other titles.68 The Wienerisches Architectur-,
Kunst- und Säulen-Buch (Viennese book of architecture, art, and the orders) by the
upstanding imperial court cabinetmaker Johann Indau was reissued in 1722. The
style of these authors is generally just as involved and convoluted as much of their
artistic production tended to be; but for all the eccentricities of a luxury industry
that had become almost completely detached from actual requirements, they were
very rarely able to renounce entirely the old proficiency, the good artistic sense,
and the noble traditions of southern German craftsmanship. The most famous of
these architectural cabinets is now at the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin. It is the
so-called Pommerscher Kunstschrank made in 1617 for Duke Philipp II of Pomerania by a select troupe of artists and craftsmen working under the supervision of
the Augsburg patrician Philipp Hainhofer, a genuine dilettante and representative
of contemporary tastes. It cost the princely sum of 20,000 thalers (fig. 80).69 The
construction and decoration present something of a microcosm, an encyclopedia
of the physical and ethical world in conventional, didactic, compendious formulas,
not unlike the rich ornamental fountain by Wenzel Jamnitzer that used to adorn the
Hradčany in Prague. Indeed, one finds a complete compendium of the customary
personifications and allegories here; all the many decorative schemes, worn thin
through centuries of intensive use — the hours and seasons, planets and heavens, the
seven liberal arts, the nine muses, the virtues and vices — perform an earnestly overelaborate saraband before us. And even music has its place in this age of the great
Netherlandish artists, with their Latinized names and their contrapuntal arts (which
still strike us as being rather odd). For almost every one of these Kunstschränke
inevitably had a clockwork keyboard or organ. The content concealed on the interior
of the Pommerscher Kunstschrank was no less varied and today fills a substantial
vitrine in the museum. There were astronomical, optical, and mathematical instruments; tableware, tools, and toiletries; writing implements, hunting gear, and fishing
tackle; all sorts of games; and lastly even a complete domestic medicine chest and
a “Balbierstube” (barbershop). Everything was allusively and artfully ornamented,
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163
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164
Fig. 81.
Lathe of Maximilian I.
Burg Kreuzenstein,
Wilczek Collection.
SCHLOSSER
packed up, and hidden away in a hundred drawers. The mere task of removing and
replacing them all according to the instructions provided would have taken several
hours. This Kunstschrank was also amply furnished with secret compartments, as
one would expect of an age that took particular pleasure in ferreting things away, in
fabulous mysteries, in riddles and puzzles. Still, none of the objects are large enough
to be anything other than models and can scarcely have been intended for actual
use, though they are all made of costly materials and were designed and executed
by excellent artists. The Kunstschränke such as the one Hainhofer described and
personally took to Innsbruck were often nothing other than small Kunstkammern,
very much laid out on the pattern of their larger counterparts and compiled according to contemporary tastes. This is particularly true of what is perhaps the richest
example of its kind, the Kunstschrank held in the academic collections at Uppsala. A
very typical little example of such a cabinet is the abovementioned Schränkchen of
Rudolf II, curiously decorated with wondrous sea creatures, medallions, and works
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
of art in various materials. It finally found its way back to the imperial collections
in Vienna after something of an odyssey in Sweden. Its drawers are now empty,
though there is still one lock of a lady’s blonde hair faithfully safeguarded in a secret
compartment. In a positivistic age all this may seem extremely childish, even tasteless and undignified to serious adults who have been taught to heed the purpose of
things. Broadly speaking, this is art as play, though of course their origins and foundations have much in common. A luxury of the idle classes it may be, but we need
to guard against making hasty one-sided judgments according to our own quite
different criteria. One often encounters similar phenomena in this period whose
literature produced such curious fruits as the concetti of Italy, the poetic style of
the Silesian School, the Euphuism of England, and the Gongorism of Spain. Even a
genius like William Shakespeare was unable to dispense entirely with things that we
would tend to consider aberrations of taste.
A particular favorite of that age, particularly in Germany, was the art of turning;
it is sufficiently well known that aristocratic gentlemen enjoyed whittling away at
their lathes right into the nineteenth century. Contemporary accounts tell us that
even Emperor Maximilian I did so. His well-preserved lathe, unique in its class,
was given to him by the Tyrolean estates. Its rich ornamentation constitutes a faithful compendium of early German volatility and the fantastical German imagination. It is now in the fine collection of Count Hans Wilczek at Burg Kreuzenstein
(fig. 81). A whole series of works by Elector Augustus of Saxony are listed in the old
inventory of the Dresden Kunstkammer as early as 1587; others by the same prince
were kept as a gift in Duke Albrecht’s Kunstkammer in Munich. We have already
mentioned the turned works from the “Danish collection” in Copenhagen, which
supposedly go back to Rudolf II. But the princely turners were still diligently plying
their lathes in the late eighteenth century, as evidenced by the works of Frederick V
of Denmark in the same collection and the colossal candelabra by Peter the Great
in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. This art form, now far less appreciated than it
used to be, was especially at home in that eminent source of trinkets the world over,
Nuremberg, where craftsmen never tired of contriving ever new forms in manageable materials, and the more intricate the better. There are countless artistic expressions that testify to all their many refinements.70 This really was a hotbed for the
most peculiar things, for filigree techniques and forms that toyed with the trickiest
of niceties, forms with a predilection for convoluted, curling lines that intentionally avoided the clear and straightforward, embraced the baroque, and heralded the
approaching rococo.
There is one particularly fine and characteristic example of such virtuosity in
the imperial collection in Vienna: a large, sophisticated, and highly refined centerpiece in ivory, dated to 1639, depicting a galleon borne on the back of an elephant
(fig. 82). Its maker, Marcus Heiden, court turner to the Duke of Saxony, pyrotechnician and gunsmith in Weimar (and thus a polymath of sorts in his own way), by no
means content with this virtuoso demonstration of every aspect of his art, sought
to combine this supreme artistic construction with a profound idea — an allegory of
Christian life — and then, moreover, left behind for the benefit of posterity a lengthy
165
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166
Fig. 82.
Ivory centerpiece by
Marcus Heiden (German,
active 1618–84).
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
167
Fig. 83.
Page of calligraphy by
Thomas Schweicker
(German, ca. 1541–1602),
1575.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
God, thine be the honor
How is the mercy of the
heart so great…
Oh, dear God, turn my
suffering…
description and meaningful interpretation of his work in his own neatly printed
pamphlet, a humble but eloquent monument to the mentality of the times in that
heyday of the Kunst- und Wunderkammern.71
Hence there was always a place for rarity and ingenuity in these Kunst- und
Wunderkammern. The sophisticated virtuoso forms of turned works such as those
just mentioned were complemented with many other things of a similar sort; the
disconcertingly touching artworks produced by cripples, for instance. In the collection at Ambras there was a calligraphic work on paper from 1575 by a certain
Thomas Schweicker, neatly written with his toes (fig. 83). Indeed, the man was such
a celebrity that medals were struck in his honor and portraits of him exhibited in the
princely Kunstkammern — again, this was characteristic of the age. Then there were
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168
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 84.
Automaton from the age
of Rudolf II [featuring Job
Riding a Turtle by Hans
Fronmüller (German,
ca. 1564–1604) and
Georg Fronmüller (German,
ca. 1565–1611), early 17th
century].
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
the trinkets of technical virtuosity in miniature: carved cherry stones and quillshaft Calvary crosses. Incidentally, such things do also occur in Italy, albeit not so
often — Vasari’s account of Properzia de’ Rossi from Bologna being a case in point.
There was a place, too, for the many learned artworks with “cogs and brackets, cylinders and screws” and, feeding into the playful again, clockwork automata, which
included the sorts of toys that we, chaste progeny of that age, would now only tend
to see in the hands of naive children or as fleeting novelties on the boulevards. And
that is just the way of the world; some of the gadgets and weapons wielded by the
children of today served the very serious purpose of defense when mankind was
still in its youth.
The indubitable significance of automata in both life and literature was carried
right into the Romanticism of the early nineteenth century; one need only recall the
important part they play in the work of E. T. A. Hoffmann. The scientific impulse
behind these things was, in the case of the early Franconian devices, still very much
connected to a desire for playful amusement; ultimately one finds much the same
ideas in scientific literature for the eighteenth-century lady, in botanical works for
the fairer sex, in Francesco Algarotti’s gallant attempts to present Isaac Newton’s
theories, and in certain popular scientific novels of our own time, though these are
aimed primarily at a younger audience (fig. 84).
We have seen how the old Kunstkammern, to use what was common parlance
back then, placed the naturalia alongside the artificialia* and in harmony with
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
169
them. Thus despite progressive enlightenment, the “natural wonders” from the
ecclesiastical and secular treasuries of the Middle Ages still found a place and a
refuge; people were well aware that all the griffins’ claws, unicorn tusks, comet eggs,
and snakes’ tongues were fabulous misnomers, and yet, like alchemy and astrology,
the lunacy of the lapidaries remained a potent force among the general public for
a long time to come. The bezoars (fig. 85), the rhinoceros horns, and the many different types of stone still played an important role as a defense against poison and
all manner of diseases, even in medical practice; treatises about their secret powers
were still printed and read as assiduously as ever. We shall trust ourselves to chance
here and take down one slim booklet from the vast literature on the subject: the
Tesoro delle gioie, which was printed in Venice in 1662 and still appeals in places
to the authority of early oriental sources. Its author conducted some of his own
experiments, with the fabulous “toadstone” for instance, and recognized many old
wives’ tales for what they were, though plenty of other received wisdom of this sort
is served up with credulity. And so, it is hardly astonishing that the apothecaries of
that period were often decked out as little museums of naturalia; the proprietors
sought to make them sufficiently peculiar and curious — thereby serving their own
inclinations and the interests of the business — by furnishing them with all sorts of
animal skins, skeletons, shells, and fossils. The snakes above the counters in our old
spice stores are a relic of those times. The Kurfürstliche Apotheke (Elector’s apothecary) in Dresden, a particular tourist attraction, is for this reason never passed over
in the earlier travel journals, and the Linckesche Museum at the Löwen Apotheke in
Leipzig retained its name and its fame well into the nineteenth century.72 Above all
it was the libraries that provided the natural focal point for endeavors of this kind;
an engraving in Edward Browne’s Reisen gives us a most vivid characterization of
the interior of the Hofbibliothek in the Vienna of Leopold I, to say nothing of the
Fig. 85.
Bezoar stones.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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170
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 86.
The Hofbibliothek in
Vienna under Leopold I,
from Edward Browne’s
Reisen (Nuremberg: J.
Zieger, 1711).
others that are mentioned here and there (fig. 86). Incidentally, the Bibliothèque
Nationale in Paris and that in the Vatican with its annexes still recall the early years
of the museum. Theatra anatomica such as the one in Leiden were likewise packed
full of both natural showpieces and all sorts of rarities such as Egyptian mummies
and other antiquities. Given the dust and the fustiness, they must have had something of the witches’ kitchen about them, some reverberation of the eerie mood in
Leopardi’s famous dialogue between the anatomist Frederik Ruysch and his mummies. Still, the actual “Naturalienkabinette” became increasingly independent and
detached from the former conglomerate. The impetus for this was the powerful
expansion of the natural sciences, not forgetting the rapid advances in our knowledge of the ecumene, as gleaned from voyages of discovery to lands that were formerly only fabled in Europe. The discovery of Africa, America, East Asia, the Arctic
countries, and “the new Holland” by the Portuguese, the Spaniards, and the Dutch
was a recurrence, albeit on a much larger scale, of the unveiling of the fabled medieval Orient by Venetian and Genoese seafarers. A wealth of strange new knowledge
now flowed into old Europe, and its repercussions were felt in both art and science.
We have already noted how the foundations of the modern ethnological museums
were laid by the historic Kunst- und Raritätenkammern in the sixteenth century.
American feather costume, barges from Greenland, African blowing horns, and
East Asian porcelain became permanent fixtures in the collections, their old occidental settings often giving some indication of their places of origin, just as they had
in the medieval treasuries (fig. 87). Ever increasing numbers of live exotic animals
started arriving in Europe as they once did in imperial Rome; printed leaflets sought
to apprehend their forms, though their representations were often distorted under
The imperial library and
cabinet of rarities.
Fig. 87.
Early American vase from
Panama in an 18th-century
Viennese setting.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
residual myths and preconceived ideas, just as deformed humans and animals were
a favorite subject for illustrators. Dürer clearly had no qualms about depicting the
first living rhinoceros to walk on European soil since Roman times. His famous
large woodcut of 1515, despite the inaccuracies (his version was made after the drawing of another), served as the basis for all rhinoceros illustrations right up to more
171
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172
Fig. 88.
Frontispiece from the
description of the Museum
Kircherianum (Amsterdam:
Janson and Wesberg,
1678).
Kircherian house of nature
and theater of art is given
for someone to be able to
discern it on the way
elsewhere.
SCHLOSSER
recent times. Even in the eighteenth century this strange foreigner was still causing
enough of a stir for the Venetian genre painter Pietro Longhi to capture him in a
little painting, which looks like it might be an illustration to the well-known fable by
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. In the North meanwhile, Augustus II the Strong commissioned a rhino from his porcelain manufactory in Meissen; it was made not from
life but in a decorative, fantastical manner and after Dürer’s example.73 And when
the same Dürer made the journey from the Dutch mainland to the coastline to see
the cadaver of a whale with his own two eyes, curiosity was clearly still a motivating factor. If the apothecaries of that age presented the sort of confused picturesque
muddle that now seems old-fashioned and even tasteless to us, they were not alone,
for the same could be said of the treasuries of knowledge from that era, the great
libraries. But there is also a serious side to them, for this sort of playful, dilettantish
curiosity provided a powerful stimulus and sustenance to scientific curiosity and
the spirit of inquiry. The curious old collections had educational value; they were a
factor of inestimable importance in the intellectual life of Europe.
Italy’s position with respect to these things is both noteworthy and significant.
It is not as though the enjoyment of artifice and curiosity was completely lacking,
but it is noticeably less prominent, and the concept of a Kunst- und Wunderkammer is just not there to the same extent and with the same definition as in the North,
especially the German North — with one major exception. And it is quite a typical
one: the famous and recently modernized Museo Kircheriano in Rome. As it happens, though, this museum was founded by a seventeenth-century northerner, the
German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher. Authentically northern in his polyhistoric interests, his rather eccentric writings — De omnibus rebus et de quibusdam aliis — covered telescopy, color theory and optics, fossils, physics, and physiology, as well as
antiquities, the Egyptian language, the history of music, and the study of musical
instruments. He published an illustrated work on China and is rightly or wrongly
said to have invented the magic lantern. All this is again reflected in his collections,
and nothing could furnish us with a better view of the whole (only recently lost)
than the title plate of the old folio catalog, which appeared in print at Amsterdam
in 1678 (fig. 88). The works of art, in both our sense and that of the time — the fine
clocks and automata — all look rather strange alongside the cabbalistic and hermetic
gadgets, the glassware, and the perpetuum mobile, especially here, on Italian soil.
The artifices that were so beloved in the North are very seldom found in Italy,
particularly the works in ivory, which were never really agreeable to the Italians.
Where they do occur, as in the grand-ducal collections of Florence and elsewhere,
it is quite characteristic that they are almost always works by Netherlandish or German artists, or gifts from transalpine princes. Horse in a Cage at the Bargello in
Florence, taken to be a work by the Sicilian Filippo Planzone, is a patent imitation
of northern trifles of this kind.74 It is a rarity in Italy. First, the high regard for
artistic form in our sense was too deeply rooted in this oldest of western cultural
nations for them to be able to acquire anything more than a transitory taste for
such contrived, often monstrous things. Second, the lucid and — temperament notwithstanding — more levelheaded, practical mentality of this people, of whom it
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173
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174
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 89.
Frontispiece from
Benedetto Ceruti’s Museum
Calceolarianum (Verona:
A. Tamum, 1622).
can be said that mathematics is the national science, had always been deeply averse
to the romantic witches’ kitchens and spooky eccentricities of the North, and as
such it always sought to extract the knowledge it needed in pure form. Hence in
the birthplace of the modern natural sciences we naturally find private collectors
establishing Naturalienkabinette very early on, but they are almost never amalgamated with artworks and curios, even in the many northern Italian collections
described by Marcantonio Michiel — Anonimo Morelliano — in the first half of the
cinquecento. At the very least there is always a sharp distinction between them.
Even the collection described in, for example, Borghini’s Il Riposo (Florence, 1584)
cannot be set alongside its northern counterparts without further ado. When a
work of art does make an appearance in a natural history collection from this
milieu, it is rarely anything other than mere decoration and only present because
even here its absence would have been conspicuous on such ancient artistic soil.
One gets a good sense of this from the title page to the catalog of an old Veronese
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
175
Naturalienkabinett, the Museum Calceolarianum (Verona, 1622) (fig. 89). While
the many animal skins suspended from the ceiling make a rather bizarre, northern
impression, the undeniable artistic aspiration is toward a restrained monumental
whole even here, a southern city whose streets are overlooked by the Alps and often
feel the chill breeze of the North.
All the same, we must mention a few other private seventeenth-century collections from northern Italy here, for their old catalogs have survived and they may
help to clarify the distinction between the Italian Raritäten- und Kuriositätenkammern* and their counterparts in Germany.75 One of these is the collection of the
Bolognese nobleman Ferdinando Cospi, which, remarkably enough, was made over
to his native city as a gift. It has recently been divided up between the university collections and the municipal museum of Bologna along with a prior bequest from the
famous physician and antiquary Ulisse Aldrovandi (fig. 90).
The characters of these two donors give a clear intimation of how they went
about their collecting. Besides a number of hobbies that were common to his age
and milieu, Cospi was an avid dilettante in the field of mechanical gadgets; Carlo
Torre’s Il Ritratto di Milano (second edition, 1714, 38) refers to him as a nobile meccanico, and this is what gives his “Kunstkammer” its particular imprint. Aldrovandi
(d. 1605) was that erudite physician who described the antiquities of Rome in his
exemplary guidebook. The fact that he also paid particular attention to the various
naturalia interspersed among the antiques in the studios of the Roman prelates
is quite comprehensible, for he was one of the greatest collectors of such things
at that time. This link between natural history and antiquarian research was an
Fig. 90.
Frontispiece from Lorenzo
Legati’s Museo Cospiano
(Bologna: G. Monti, 1677).
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176
SCHLOSSER
important one; it was often the humanistically educated medics who cataloged the
old collections.
The Museo Cospiano maintains a very clean distinction between naturalia and
artificialia, but even its “artificiosa” are very much conceived from the perspective
of the naturalist and lend the whole the character of an ethnographic and anthropological museum. The curious is by no means absent either. In fact it is quite a
prominent feature, even in the Naturalienkabinett, with its numerous pathological
preparations, its freaks of nature, and so on. Similarly, in the Kunstkammer — if
this name can be retained at all where it really no longer applies — one finds the by
now familiar mathematical, optical, and nautical instruments alongside porcelain
and crystal and virtuoso trinkets in ivory, though the latter are expressly lauded as
works by “German Callicrati*,” which were fashionable at the time. The artwork as
such, even when considered as a curiosity of technique, clearly plays second fiddle
here; it serves as an example of its raw material or as an ethnographic, antiquarian
specimen. Etruscan urns and Roman funerary lamps are included as evidence of
burial customs; antique bronzes are brought together with Egyptian and Mexican
idols as illustrations of mythology. The numismatic collection, which includes a
considerable collection of plaquettes, is present in its own right, and, as a characteristically Italian afterthought, the end of the catalog gives a short inventory of the
private gallery at the Palazzo Cospi [now Ferretti], as a separate subject in a separate place, with no pretentions to being anything other than an art lover’s collection
of paintings, antique and modern sculptures, and applied arts.76
The museum of Count Lodovico Moscardo in Verona, also associated with
a Naturalienkabinett, had a purely antiquarian background. The owner himself
describes the collection in a quarto that is rather spoiled by implausibly poor illustrations. Here, too, an appended catalog summarizes the contents of a not insignificant gallery of paintings, drawings, and historical portraits.
The ideas behind the German collections were most closely approximated by the
museum of the Milanese patrician Manfredo Settala (fig. 91). Here one would have
seen works in crystal, coral, amber, seashells, and even the kind of feather mosaics
we have already encountered. But the main purpose of these things was instruction
in natural history — all the artifacts (the gemstones, for instance) were placed alongside raw materials and served as illustrations, the whole essentially conforming to
the pattern of natural scientific observation. Neighboring countries beyond the Alps
were again acknowledged in the form of ivories by German and Netherlandish virtuosi, although here — and this was quite typical of the fashion — they were joined by
a series of turned works by the owner himself, then by mechanical trinkets from the
workshops of Augsburg. Once again, the coda to the museum consisted of a small
independent picture gallery with some sonorous names, a stately library, and a very
impressive collection of coins and medals.
After this, the fatherland of Dante became increasingly entangled in a longing for
past national greatness which, it would be safe to say, along with the impact of clerical reaction, constituted an irrevocable sociopolitical leitmotif for Italy as a whole.
While the nations of the North faced the future on new paths, the classical armor of
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
Ausonia grew heavier and heavier. Even in 1870, with unification accomplished, the
famous Neapolitan critic Francesco De Sanctis concluded his brilliant account of
Italian literature with these gloomy words: “We still have the academy and arcadia,
classicism and romanticism hard at our heels. We live on our past and the achievements of others.” And so it was that, from the seventeenth century on, the homeland
of Leonardo and Galileo — whose painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, poets,
and singers were playing court favorites and inundating foreign lands more than ever
before — forfeited its leading position in the sciences, a few brilliant exceptions notwithstanding. The edifice of the modern natural sciences was erected by the French,
the English, the Germans, the Dutch, and the Scandinavians. The New World may
well have been discovered by a Genoese, albeit in the service of Spain, and its name
may well have come from a Florentine scholar [Amerigo Vespucci], but the descendants of Marco Polo and the other adventurous travelers from the Italian Middle Ages
played a minimal role in opening up the globe; in this they almost lagged behind the
landlocked Germans, and it was a courtesy on the part of the Fuggers from Augsburg when they called one of their outposts Little Venice—Venezuela—after the old
dominator of Levantine trade to whom they were so closely bound.
———
It may be of interest to familiarize ourselves in closing with the ideal of a Kunst- und
Wunderkammer as imagined by our forefathers. The following description is from
Einckel’s Museographia (fig. 92), 421–23:
Once a decent stock of all manner of rarities has been assembled in one place,
a chamber should be chosen. It should face south-east for good ventilation,
its walls should be dry, the floor vaulted, the daylight well distributed, and it
should be safeguarded against all calamities besides. The walls and the vaults
should have no other ornament than a coat of bright white paint. The chamber
of rarities I have in mind is roughly twice as long as it is broad and oriented
toward the light of day so that the smallest thing within can be perceived. The
entrance to the same is right in the middle, and on entering the chamber one
177
Fig. 91.
Frontispiece from Paolo
Maria Terzago’s Museum
Septalianum (Tortona:
Viola, 1664).
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178
SCHLOSSER
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
sees repositoria on both sides and from top to bottom, much like conventional
bookshelves or bookcases. Their dividing boards are arranged in such a way
that the largest space, of one or one-and-a-half ells high, for example, is at the
bottom, with the intervals then gradually decreasing as they go up, diminishing to a height of roughly one hand at the top. Such repositoria can then
be enclosed at the front with an ornamental oriel or arch, and painted in an
agreeable but appropriate color. There will be six repositoria of this sort, two
on either side of the door, four devoted to the naturalibus or rarities of nature.
The first and furthest contains all kinds of birds and four-legged animals.
The largest of these, which would be stuffed, are at the bottom in the largest
compartment, with the smaller animals placed at increasing heights up to the
highest row, where those conserved in spiritus vini can be kept in safety, yet
in such a way that both are at once well presented and capable of amusing the
mind and the senses. In the second repositorium one sees all kinds of fishes,
snakes, lizards, and so on, arranged in the manner of the first. Similarly, in
the third one finds all manner of things, partly vegetabilia, partly mineralia
or fossilia, of which the largest occupy the lowest space, whereas the smaller
things are distributed up to the top in proportion to their size; the fourth and
final repositorium on this side comprises all sorts of sea creatures, shells or
snails, and so on, beautifully and sensibly presented so as to delight both eye
and mind. At each end of the chamber we now have empty spaces in which the
remaining two repositoria stand, one at the upper end, one at the lower end of
the chamber. In the one at the upper end are all kinds of anatomical objects,
predominantly human objects, as in mummies, embalmed and anatomized
children whose skeletons are displayed along with those of fully grown adults
and other anatomized parts of beasts and men artificially prepared in balsam
or varnish. The repositorium opposite this, at the other end of the chamber,
contains all manner of curiosa artificialia, or artificial objects, whereby a chief
distinction is to be made between the antique and modern objects, though
essentially they are arranged such that both the art and the artists’ intentions
are perceptible. The chamber I am imagining has four windows, one opposite
each of the first four repositoria on the entrance side. Thus we still have some
empty space in front of the three masonry pillars between the said four windows. The one in the middle of the three stands directly opposite the entrance
or door; here I should like to have a cabinet of coins and medals, either
beautifully painted or neatly constructed in wood. But it ought to be made in
such a way that yet another, smaller cabinet can be placed on top of it, and this
should have plenty of drawers in which to keep the smallest and most precious
things, for such things are easily misplaced and lost otherwise, and they ought
to be kept in good order. As for the naturalibus, with objects such as bezoar,
Pedro del Porco, stones from the testiculo castoris (testicle of a beaver), stag
tears, precious minerals, gold, diamonds, and so on; likewise the art objects,
costly things such as a ring with a skillfully crafted castle, towers of precious
stone, and the like — as for these things I say that both of the two parts ought to
179
Fig. 92.
From Caspar Friedrich
Einckel’s Museographia
(Leipzig and Breslau:
M. Hubert, 1727).
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180
SCHLOSSER
take up about half of the little cabinet and should be divided up in an orderly
fashion. Either side of this central pillar we still have an unoccupied one on
each side, and both of these should be taken up with shelving or repositoria
for books about museums or containers of rarities. The catalogus appended
to Part II may be of service here. Finally, a long narrow table could be placed
in the middle of the room and under the four window posts for laying out
the rarities and looking at them when they are brought down for inspection,
or, when certain books are required, for leafing through them and looking
things up. A more stately appearance would be achieved if all these books had
French bindings and fine gilding, which would be easy enough given their
small number. A pair of large globes could be placed at either end of the table,
and from the vault one could hang several large, monstrous animals such as a
young whale, a large crocodile, a seal, snakes, and so on, while the doors at the
entrance could be flanked by a pair of fearsome stuffed lions, bears, or tigers.
Any remaining space above the windows and the repositoria could be filled or
hung with rare paintings by famous masters. This, then, is the museum I have
erected, if only in my mind and imagination, though I would be more than
happy to do so in fact.
It was a very long time before delight in the curious abated; it persisted throughout
the eighteenth century, and the French still use the word curiosité for a certain type
of collecting. Even in the first decades of the nineteenth century, at the epicenter
of German intellectual culture, Weimar, Goethe’s brother-in-law, Christian August
Vulpius, published a journal under the typically long-winded title Curiositäten
der physisch- literarisch- artistisch- historischen Vor- und Mitwelt; zur angenehmen
Unterhaltung für gebildete Leser (Curiosities past and present, physical and literary,
artistic and historical; for the enjoyment of educated readers) (from 1811).77 In its
program the journal explicitly presented itself as a Kuriositätenkammer, and just
as the title strikes us as being quaintly old-fashioned, the same goes for much of
the colorful content, though even Goethe himself deigned to make the occasional
appearance as a contributor of such articles as “Der Tänzerin Grab” (The dancer’s
grave). It generally served up the sort of thing one would now only find tucked
away in secluded corners of certain family magazines. It will be worth our while
to select a couple of articles from this rather overfilled little treasure trove. One of
them is dedicated to the curious “Pusterich” (bellower) of Sondershausen, supposedly an early Lower Sorbian idol, which truly has a place here and which also crops
up in Goethe’s invective against his hapless imitator, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm
Pustkuchen:
Bellower, an idol,
Dreadful to behold,
An awful gust, a rotten stench
Over German field and fold.
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
181
One such bellower, which for Goethe symbolized all things obnoxious, can be found
in the imperial collection at Vienna (fig. 93), though it is doubtless a forgery of the
seventeenth or eighteenth century and, like similar trinkets from quattrocento Italy,
may originally have derived from naive experiments with steam power. Interest in the
bellower was rekindled in the eighteenth century thanks to the romantic preoccupation with northern Slavic antiquities, the submerged city of Vineta (on which even
Carl Friedrich von Rumohr wrote an essay), and so on. More than these, though, the
approaching romantic era was heralded by a turn to the Middle Ages — though its
specifically eighteenth-century undertones were never entirely absent — and by other
forgeries that were often taken at face value. These were the so-called Baphometes
(fig. 94), alleged idols of the Knights Templar, who happen to have been the subject of a copious body of literature at just that time. It almost goes without saying
that they were discussed in the pages of the Weimar Curiositäten, but Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, the well-known Viennese orientalist, also dedicated an
interminable study to them in his journal, Fundgruben des Orients (Treasures of the
Orient). This text on the Baphometes furnished Goethe with a rich seam of material
and is quite unparalleled in its abstruse scholarly acrobatics and its uncritical denial
of historical fact. In reality these ghastly grotesques were actually the clumsiest of
forgeries; having once been objects of admiration, a large number of them have now
been banished to the dungeon of the storeroom of the imperial Antikenkabinett* in
Fig. 93.
Pusterich.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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182
SCHLOSSER
Fig. 94.
Baphometes.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Vienna. They were probably produced speculatively by forgers who were justifiably
counting on their contemporaries’ gullibility and insatiable appetite for curiosities.
Which is instructive in itself, primarily because it clearly demonstrates how that era
delighted in Cagliostran mysticism. It is well known that such phenomena aroused
Goethe’s enduring interest. The secretiveness and operatic symbolics of freemasonry
are not something we need go into here; suffice to say they had some effect even on
Goethe. After all, he did entertain the idea of writing a sequel to The Magic Flute, and
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship shows clear traces of masonic influence.78 This sort
of thing then rears its rather more contorted and ghoulish head in those unbearable
monstrosities of the forger’s eccentric imagination, from which the great poet will
certainly have averted his pure eyes in horror and revulsion.
If the old notion of the Wunderkammer still had this much literary life in it
during the Napoleonic era in Germany, then we can imagine how important it must
have been for the preceding period. The social impact of these old Kuriositätenkammern ought not to be underestimated either. Foreigners of distinction were virtually
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
obliged to visit them, though admittedly it was almost exclusively people such as
these who had the material means to visit them at all. Johann Georg Keyßler reports
that (around 1730) the usual tip for a visit to the Schatzkammer in Vienna was no
less than twenty-five gulden, and to the picture gallery twelve gulden, though this
cost could be defrayed among a group. Montaigne is not known to have been particularly interested in the visual arts otherwise, but even he made a point of visiting Ambras. For scholars, too, such collections were a treasure to behold; here we
may recall once again Patin’s Relations to the Duke of Württemberg; such connections between a scholarly adviser and a prince with a thirst for knowledge were
quite typical. Ultimately it is no wonder that this era produced such an impressive
number of theoretical writings and instructions, museologies and other such works
under similarly lofty and long-winded titles. One shall be taken as representative of
them all here, namely the Museum Museorum, Oder Vollständige Schau-Bühne Aller
Materialien und Specereÿen . . . Der Studierenden Jugend, Materialisten, Apothecker
und deren Visitatoren, Wie auch anderer Künstler, als Jubelirer, Mahler, Färber, u.s.w.
also verfasset und Mit etlich hundert sauberen Kupfferstücken unter Augen geleget von
D. Michael Bernhard Valentini, Ihro Hoch-Fürstl. . . . zu Hessen-Darmstadt, Leib- und
Hof-Medico, der Artzney und Natürl. Wissenschaften Prof. Ord. zu Giessen (Museum
museorum, or, comprehensive theater of all materials and spices . . . laid before the
eyes of young students, materialists, apothecaries, and their visitators, and before
such artists as jewelers, painters, colorists, etc., thus compiled, with many hundreds
of fine engravings, by Dr. Michael Bernhard Valentini, court medic and personal
physician to the Grand Duke of Hessen-Darmstadt, professor of natural sciences
and of medicine in Giessen). It was published in two folios at Frankfurt, 1704–14
(fig. 95), besides which there is a separate essay at the end, written some time earlier and published at Kiel in 1674, the “Unvorgreiffliche Bedenken Von Kunst- und
Naturalien-Kammern insgemein” (Unanticipated deliberations on Kunst- und Naturalien-Kammern in general). These deliberations contain a comprehensive theory
of collecting, a history of the same from King Solomon on, as well as a list of the
then known princely and private museums.
More comprehensive still is a work that we have already cited a number of times:
Caspar Friedrich Einckel’s Museographia, expanded by Dr. Johann Kanold and published at Leipzig and Breslau in 1727, not least because the second volume contains
a full bibliography of all the old page-turners that once constituted a permanent
fixture in the inventory of any scholar’s study. Though seldom consulted nowadays,
these books contained many wondrous things and some by no means worthless
information. Valentini’s book is also remarkable enough in this respect, that is, as a
piece of cultural history, though it essentially presents itself as a natural history of
the three kingdoms; the second volume in particular contains a wealth of information about almost everything that belonged to the realm of the curious at that time
and is accompanied by some very important engravings besides. In considering the
various types of earth it discusses prehistoric funerary urns, Early Christian lamps
and sarcophagi, as well as terra sigillata bowls and Chinese porcelain; the fossils and
dendrites are followed not only by games of nature, such as petrified images of the
183
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184
Fig. 95.
Frontispiece from Michael
Bernhard Valentini’s
Museum Museorum
(Frankfurt: Zunner & Jung,
1704–14).
Valentini
Natur- und Materialen
Kammer (Cabinet of
naturalia and materials)
With correspondence and
reports from East India
SCHLOSSER
Madonna, but also by the carved stones of antiquity. Nor is the agate bowl from the
Schatzkammer in Vienna omitted. It is mentioned along with Lambeck’s peculiar
interpretation of the name of Christ, which allegedly appears on the surface of the
bowl. Elsewhere, Hottentots and Greenlanders are discussed along with animals and
exotic plants; natural deformations are not omitted, and the basilisk is honored with
an illustration. This is the same approach as that of the Italian Naturalienkabinette,
yet with a clearly perceptible northern slant. Arcimboldo’s mascarons get a ghoulish
look-in, and it is very strange indeed that the end of this section — in an out-and-out
survival of the Middle Ages — should include some of the most famous reliquaries of
Christ and Mary: the seamless robe from Trier, the crown of thorns, the comb of the
Virgin Mary. Stranger still is that these all appear in perfect harmony with the sword
of none other than the Hussite Jan Žižka. There is clearly a touch of rancor toward
the “Roman Catholics” on the part of the Protestant author here, but the material is
given the same tediously earnest treatment all the same.
Similarly, where the enumeration of famous Kunstkammern and Naturalienkabinette innocently includes the ecclesiastical treasures of Loreto, Aachen, and
Venice (and not without a certain historical justification), this, too, is a remnant of
the Middle Ages and clear evidence of the long-enduring influence of the theological spirit. Likewise the edifying coda, “Von der himmlischen Kunstkammer” (On
the heavenly Kunstkammer), a prolix religious poem in alexandrines. But this is
hardly unusual; Einckel’s history of the Naturalienkammern opens in all seriousness
with Noah’s Ark. Valentini’s appendix, the “Neu auffgerichtetes Rüst- und Zeughauß
der Natur” (Newly erected arsenal and armory of nature) then deals with every
conceivable apparatus and machine; scholarly gadgetry and fantasy were in the very
bones of that age, and here they are gladly given free reign, especially in the illustrations. One need not take the erudite Giessen professor to task for having included
the bellower, or for talking at great length about catichords and donkichords and an
astonishing man with no arms or legs; it is amusing that a newly invented lathe is
brought together with things like fly traps and chastity belts. As for the intellectual
ancestry of this widely disseminated and much-used bible for the curious collector,
the long discourse with which these thick folio volumes are brought to a close is
instructive: it covers the divining rod, its making, and its use.
Alongside the heavy artillery of such folios and quartos there were also a number of blotting-paper booklets, vade mecums for the curious tourist. One such is a
publication from the literary estate of the learned numismatist Johann David Köhler:
Anweisung für Reisende Gelehrte, Bibliothecken, Münz-Cabinette, Antiquitäten-Zimmer, Bilder-Säle, Naturalien- und Kunst-Kammern, u. d. m. mit Nutzen zu besehen
(Instructions for traveling scholars on usefully visiting libraries, coin cabinets, rooms
of antiquities, picture galleries, Naturalienkabinette, Kunstkammern, and the like)
(Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1762) — where the libraries, coin cabinets, collections of
antiquities, galleries, Naturalienkammern, and finally Kunstkammern are all treated
according to an abstruse method and in what is often a rather comical cicerone jargon, without any sort of historical articulation or insight and without a trace of artistic education — notwithstanding the instructions on how to become a connoisseur,
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185
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SCHLOSSER
though these actually tend to recall the jocular little book by Johann Hermann Detmold. It is the bespectacled incarnation of armchairdom; it quite rightly includes all
the old material on the errors of the artists, an old horse that was much flogged from
the Counter-Reformation on. A somewhat closer look at the chapter on the Kunstkammern will not be devoid of interest. It is made to accommodate everything that
could not be omitted but had not yet found a place in the other drawers. Here we find
instruments used by a variety of artists (surgeons included, as per the old scholastic
conception of the arts); models of famous buildings, from the Temple of Solomon
onward (there is still a cork collection of this kind in the museum at Darmstadt, quite
a typical museum in its class); artistic works in ivory and rhinoceros horn; coconut
shells and ostrich eggs; turned works by potentates such as Emperor Leopold, Peter
the Great, and the Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel; masterpieces by master craftsmen;
musical instruments (for which the collection at Kassel is again taken as the paradigm, with special mention of the Landgrave’s edifying catichord); artistic “works
by gentlewomen” (we recall in passing the antependium from Sant’Anna in Venice,
embroidered by Tintoretto’s daughters and now kept in Vienna); works by master calligraphers and artworks by cripples and invalids; optical instruments, mouthpieces,
clocks, and the like; noteworthy glassware such as Luther’s glass in Nuremberg; and
fine wire works and ornamental wax reliefs, whereby we ought not to forget Gaetano
Giulio Zumbo’s gruesome concoctions, still at the Bargello in Florence. There is also
mention of the German artist Daniel Neuberger and his daughter Anna Felicitas, a
number of whose works, very much in the fine taste of their times, are still held at the
Hofmuseum in Vienna; then of the alchemical arts, despite these having already been
declared a complete fraud (it may be that Köhler, an experienced numismatist, had
in mind the large Habsburg medal of 1677 from the Viennese coin cabinet; the alchemist Johann Wenzel von Reinburg claimed to have turned it from silver to gold);
the clothing of notables and foreign peoples; arms and armory with due mention of
the Ambras collection, but also of the halberd with which Albrecht von Wallenstein
was murdered; and lastly the porcelain, its origins in the occidental laboratory of an
alchemist being the unmistakable signature of that century.
This particular section of Köhler’s vade mecum will inevitably seem rather oldfashioned and muddled to us, but then so does the rest of the booklet with its marvelously detailed systematicity and nomenclature; the same applies when the worthy
Köhler holds forth on dividing statues into categories: nude and clothed, standing
and sitting, riding and so on. Genuine German pedantry of this kind also comes
to light in another, far more comprehensive compendium, the mere title of which
serves as an adequate summary: Der Geöffnete Ritter-Platz, Worinnen Die vornehmsten Ritterlichen Wissenschafften und Ubungen . . . Denen Liebhabern zum Vergnügen,
vornehmlich der Politischen Jugend zu Nutzen und denen Reisenden zur Bequemlichkeit an das Licht gestellet werden (The chivalric seat revealed, in which the noblest
chivalric sciences and exercises . . . are brought to light for the pleasure of amateurs,
predominantly for the benefit of the political youth and for the convenience of
travelers) (Hamburg, 1715). Its three thick little volumes and decent prints constitute an encyclopedia of “gallant science” for the perfect cavalier, containing — in
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THE KUNST- UND WUNDERKAMMERN
187
haphazard order — theoretical reflections on military science, the visual arts, numismatics, equestrianism and hunting, mechanics and engineering, antiquarianism,
librarianship, the history of law and religion, Raritäten- and Naturalienkammern,
metallurgy, and, last but not least, trade and industry; in short, an impressively
packed bundle of everything worth knowing, an epitome and summation of what
the old collections had to offer to the tourist. But this elaborate little compendium
accompanied one Johann Joachim Winckelmann on his travels, and books of this
kind put many other marvels in a different light for us. Thus we find modern science, particularly in Germany, cutting an often erroneous path through both the
scrub and the riches of the old magazines. And we should never forget that it was
through the holdings of one such Kunst- und Naturalienkammer, namely that at
Weimar, that Goethe, by his own account, made one of his most significant and, for
the modern theory of evolution, most fertile discoveries: the identification of the
human intermaxillary bone.
Fig. 96.
Joris Hoefnagel
(Netherlandish, 1542–
1601). Innsbruck with
View of Ambras, n.d.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
Top center: A view of the
most elegant Innsbruck
from the East
Top left: Schloss Ambras
built by his most serene
Archduke Ferdinand of
Austria, in which are his
library and museum
Top right: West
Bottom left: Joris
Hoefnagel depicted it from
the model of Alexander
Colin
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189
III.
CONCLUSION: THE SUBSEQUENT
DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTING
By way of conclusion we shall take a look at the onward development and the
beginnings of modern collecting. Two countries are particularly significant in this
respect. The first can rightly be called the birthplace of modern art and science:
Italy. The second, an Ultima Thule to European culture, made some highly significant interventions at both the beginning and the end of the second great historical
epoch: England.
As the oldest cultural region in the West, Italy had already seen the rise and fall
of an entire worldview while the naive children and impetuous adolescents of the
other countries had to start from the beginning. For all the clouds that darkened the
Middle Ages, antiquity was always Italy’s great past, its national heritage, and the
roots of modern individualism spread out in well-tilled soil. It has often been said
that this had consequences for art. Artists in the land of art had always enjoyed a
level of personal and social status that was entirely different to the status of artists
elsewhere. From a very early stage, artworks themselves were treated as individual
things that were to be appreciated, looked after, and collected for their own sake. Italy’s classical heritage certainly played a part in this; the practice of exhibiting sculptures in openly accessible halls on public market squares survived throughout the
Middle Ages without ever being completely extinguished. The cemetery in Pisa with
its antique sarcophagi, an academy of arts since Niccolò Pisano, is familiar enough
by now, and we know that the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence housed famous works
of art as early as the sixteenth century. The thought of ancient Gloria was never
entirely forgotten either, least of all in the surviving ancient communes. Famous
citizens from classical antiquity, indigenous poets, and writers were honored with
public memorials even in the Middle Ages: Virgil had two in Mantua, where he can
be seen everywhere on seals and flags as a sort of pagan patron saint, that of Pliny
the Younger adorns a sacred site in his native city of Como, and in Padua there
were plans to erect a statue to Livy at the beginning of the fifteenth century, while a
monument to Ovid was actually erected in Sulmona. The continued proliferation of
local commemorations in modern-day Italy is occasionally a source of some astonishment among foreigners; and if for some reason a memorial cannot be erected,
the glorious name from the past will always be recalled by some coffeehouse sign
or other, the Caffè Desiderio in the little town of Settignano and Caffè Dorico in
Ancona, for instance. Finally, one ought not to forget that a great many remnants
of antiquity were still standing in the Middle Ages, above all the two most famous
Fig. 97.
The gallery in Sabbioneta.
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190
SCHLOSSER
equestrian statues: Marcus Aurelius in Rome (albeit reinterpreted as the Caballus
Constantini) and the Regisole in Pavia, which was only destroyed relatively recently,
whereas one of the later monuments of this kind, the equestrian statue of Theodoric,
was moved from Ravenna to the Königspfalz at Aachen by Charlemagne, where
objections soon saw it removed. A steady stream of buried antiquities came to light
in the Middle Ages as well; the most remarkable example is probably the one we
have already mentioned: a statue inscribed with the name Lysippos was set up on
the Fonte Gaia in the middle of Siena where it was received with a great deal of
popular enthusiasm. Artists such as Ambrogio Lorenzetti immediately began using
it as an object of study, and this continued unabated even after it was removed. The
Italian approach to these things was not determined by some strong-willed individual with an eye on posterity, nor even someone such as the restorer of the old
imperial title, as at Aachen; whether in wisdom or folly, there was a decisive and
unanimous majority here right from the very beginning. Everything suggests that
art had a very different role in Italy, that its importance in public life was far greater;
rather than serving religious and private interests exclusively it was always open to
other impulses and intentions. Having attended a meeting of the Academy of Olympians in Vicenza, Goethe gave sufficiently dramatic expression to this view with the
following words: “If only it were possible to stand up in front of one’s own countrymen like this and entertain them in person, instead of having to confine one’s best
thoughts to the printed page of some book at which a solitary reader, hunched up in
a corner, then nibbles as best he can.”
The depth and breadth of all this only increased in the fifteenth century. The
great Florentine artists began their activity, from Filippo Brunelleschi to Leonardo
and Michelangelo, men whose cultural significance and potency — this is especially
true of the latter two — almost always went well beyond the constraints of their art.
One of the earliest, Ghiberti, became a pioneer of modern natural science when he
discovered the laws of optics, but he was also one of the first to turn his gaze to the
past, drawing inspiration from a classical exemplar, Pliny, and giving account of his
artistic ancestry in a remarkable autobiography. There is something very modern at
work here; it anticipates Goethe and the notion of evolution.
And so it is no wonder that purely scientific and historical interest constitutes
a powerful presence alongside the purely artistic interest of the earliest Italian collections. The obsession with rarities and curiosities was confined to unobtrusive
little corners; indeed, it is tempting to see such things as little more than atavistic
vestiges. It is typical that the famous collection of antiquities in the Medici garden
was immediately made accessible for artistic study; its custodian, Bertoldo, was also
an artist, and his apprentice Michelangelo drew a great deal of inspiration from
the collection.79 Artists’ ateliers became little museums in their own right: the Florentine Ghiberti owned a number of outstanding antiques, one of them being the
long-famous and mysterious Bed of Polykleitos, which, after some strange peregrinations, ultimately seems to have been lost along with the collection of Rudolf II.
And Ghiberti’s collection had its counterparts in the northern Italian collections of
Francesco Squarcione, Andrea Mantegna, and the Lombardo family.
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THE SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTING
This sort of direct and vital interest in the inheritance of an esteemed past was
soon associated with the appreciation of living artists in the present, and this was
manifested with an intensity that was generally quite alien to the North. As in antiquity, clay models and drawings by famous masters were kept in the workshops, and
outstanding works such as the Madonna reliefs by Donatello and his followers were
widely disseminated in stucco reproductions, sometimes to the homes of private
citizens. A major feature of these collections are their small sculptures in bronze,
another part of Italy’s classical heritage that was rather rare in the North. The medium
of bronze casting not only facilitated the multiplication of original works themselves
(the so-called plaquette was used extensively for this task) but was soon found to
be suitable for the purposes of artistic reproduction as well. Reduced reproductions
of famous antiques (and modern works, though less frequently), which would later
constitute a significant portion of the so-called cinquecento bronzes, brought classical forms to a wide audience as early as the fifteenth century, particularly those by
Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi in Mantua, who called himself Antico. The Hofmuseum
in Vienna has an excellent reproduction, dated 1470, of the much-copied Marcus
Aurelius statue; that made for Piero de’ Medici by Filarete, now in Dresden, is even
earlier. At this point a secondary trail branches off into imitation and deliberate
forgery. Again, this path was taken up early on, particularly in that great center of
casting, Padua, which built up quite a head of steam in this direction.
The transalpine technique of engraving and the role it was accorded in Italy also
tells us a great deal about the Italian perspective. The creative, intimate character
it had originally had was very soon lost; it was used for reproductions of drawings
by respected masters from the outset and then, in the circle of Raphael and Marcantonio Raimondi, was made to serve the very modern purpose of reproducing
both antique and modern works. Museums of plaster casts began to appear in Italy
at around the same time, certainly no later. One of the earliest documented was
established in the last decade of the quattrocento by Ludovico Gonzaga, Bishop of
Mantua, at his Palazzo Gazzuolo.80 Then, in the sixteenth century, there was the cast
museum of Leone Leoni, which already contained pieces of considerable size, such
as the Marcus Aurelius.81 If we now also include the drawings, which were eagerly
sought and collected from very early on, even in the trecento, by both artists and
amateurs (such as Oliviero Forzetta in Treviso), and upon which the historical work
of Vasari was in no small part predicated, then the result is an abundance of indirect
sources the likes of which only became available in the North later, if indeed at all.
The particular example of this artist-biographer from Arezzo shows that the chief
purpose of these collections — to educate and delight the minds and eyes of artists
and friends of art — eventually led to a historical appreciation of the course of art
history. This artistic-scientific double nature pertained to most of the many private
collections in Italy; they were genuinely amateur collections, established by friends
of art in the fully modern sense: for the sake of the artwork as such, for the owner’s
enjoyment, and for study by artist friends and favorites.
One ought not to forget that art history, aesthetics, and art criticism remained
the near exclusive preserve of practicing artists for quite some time, and that the
191
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192
SCHLOSSER
slowly dying breed of the painter-cum-gallery-director is another vestige of that
era. In sharp distinction to collectors in the North, particularly in Germany, where
medieval views stubbornly persisted, collectors in the historic country of culture to
the south of the Alps placed two things above all else: the form of artistic objects
and the philological appreciation of antiquities. Thus the authentically Italian counterpart to the Heiltumstühle* were its temporary art exhibitions of antiquities, which
are documented in Rome as early as the reign of Pope Leo X.82 And just as these
exhibitions in the city of the popes were associated with an ecclesiastical-secular
ceremony — the sacro processo of the pontiff — it is also telling that the open-air exhibitions of new paintings in the conservative city of Venice still characterized state
ecclesiastical festivals right up to the last century of the Venetian Republic, at which
point the Parisian salon was already in existence. The Netherlandish parish festivals
with their picture trading are a different thing altogether.
Thus we find methodically arranged, complete collections of coins, gemstones,
inscriptions, and portraits at a very early stage in Italy, collections that then fed
directly into scholarly antiquarian study; it is no coincidence that Italy possesses a
body of local historical literature to which no other country even comes close, or
that Vasari’s biographies were directly connected to the large portrait collection of
his patron, Giovio. And things were not all that different in the collections of natural objects either; these were also autonomous and systematically organized from
very early on, not mixed up to quite the same extent with all manner of curiosities
and miscellaneous artifacts. This wholly modern spirit also becomes evident in the
social milieu of these collections. The boundaries between the classes were fluid;
private, bourgeois collectors stood right alongside the princes, both in the Tuscan
democracies and in the ancient communes of northern Italy, where, incidentally,
French chevalerie exerted a considerable influence. Even today this phenomenon
remains more conspicuous in Italy than elsewhere. It scarcely has a single counterpart among the various shades of feudalism and guild structures in the other
countries, neither in the mercantile cities of southern Germany, nor even Flanders,
which had many ties to Italy and achieved a state of civic well-being early on. Right
at the beginning of the fourteenth century the remarkable diaristic notes of a collector from Treviso, Oliviero Forzetta, reveal the apparently very modern interests
of this man, who hunted down antiques and drawings by highly regarded painters.
In the Renaissance proper, an artist’s atelier abutted the studiolo of Isabella d’Este in
the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, an utterly modern interior with exquisite works of
art.83 Similarly, there was a hermitage for the reclusive philosopher at the chivalric
magione of Sabba da Castiglione in Faenza, which has been preserved to this day in
picturesque dilapidation.84
Much as he had been in the Roman Empire, the prince of the Italian Renaissance was little more than a primus inter pares and was only distinguished from
the private collector by the greater extent of his means. The name of the Medici
has almost become a type in its own right, like that of their Tuscan compatriot,
Maecenas; but the Medici were just one particularly fortunate family within the rich
and resourceful world of a mercantile Florentine society that included the Strozzi,
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THE SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTING
the Doni, the Martelli, and many others. A man of humble origins such as Ghiberti
stood alongside them and was every bit their equal. A list of private collections such
as the one compiled for northern Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century
by Marcantonio Michiel — Anonimo Morelliano — is certainly not to be expected for
Germany in the same period, even if one completely ignores the artistic treasures in
the aristocratic palaces of Venice and Genoa.85
Italy, the cradle of modern art, is thus also the cradle of modern tastes in collecting. The great picture galleries attained ever greater prominence over the course
of the sixteenth century, no longer as appendages to the Kunstkammern or intermingled with them, as in the North, but independent of them and with a dominant
position. Though the name came from France and originally denoted a long corridor such as those that remain the characteristic elements of the Uffizi, the Louvre,
and even the modern Prado museum in Madrid, the thing itself is Italian through
and through and became the model for the rest of Europe.
Even if the supposed Stoa Poikile at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli has to be discounted on the basis of recent studies, Italy still has the old museum halls at the
castle in Mantua and the externally well-preserved hall of antiquities at the little
residence of Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna in Sabbioneta, with an open colonnade
beneath a continuous long gallery on the upper story; most of its former contents
are now in Mantua (fig. 97).86
The finest collections of this kind were of course the princely collections, and
the first among them was that of the Medici in Florence, whose famous tribune
contained some of the most exquisite works (including Raphael’s Portrait of Pope
Leo X) even in the sixteenth century.87 Next in line were the collections in Mantua,
Modena, and Naples, though these were closely followed by the great private galleries in the palaces of Rome, Venice, and Genoa.88 In the latter two patrician republics, the divide between the private citizen and the possessions of the head of state
lost all meaning. One need only mention the names Borghese, Grimani, and Doria.
The Italian [wälsch] approach to collecting soon spread, first of all to France,
which had always been receptive to innovations, had propagated them with the
greatest vigor, and was the first country to make a clean break with its national
“Gothic” past, whereas Germany held on to the semimedieval form of the Kuriositätenkammer longer than anywhere else. Francesco Primaticcio was commissioned to produce a series of bronzes from antiques by Francis I, but the history
of the Louvre only really begins in the seventeenth century, when two large private
collections were acquired for the royal gallery: those of Cardinal Jules Mazarin and
the banker Eberhard Jabach.89 Even a fleeting description of the great collections of
that age would take us too far from our stated aims; that is very much a subject in
its own right. We need only emphasize that the collecting activity of the European
grandees (with the exception of the Germans) was very much modeled on the spirit
of the Italian amateurs. This was especially true of Philip II of Spain, a genuinely
keen and insightful friend of art who has been brilliantly described by Carl Justi.90
At her residence in Mechelen, Margaret of Austria possessed one of the earliest
northern amateur collections with its own strongly pronounced character. Similarly,
193
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194
SCHLOSSER
her descendent Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, quite aside from the Raritätenkabinett
we have already discussed, made intelligent use of his fine opportunities — such as
the auctioning of the aristocratic picture galleries after the English Revolution — to
assemble yet another collection in the Netherlands, a group of paintings that still
constitutes the precious core of the imperial gallery in Vienna today, despite many
losses and malicious interventions. As we know, its original appearance has been preserved in a series of pictures by David Teniers the younger, pictures that lead us into
the intimate atmosphere of this genuine and genteel art lover’s collection [LiebhaberSammlung] (fig. 98), whereas its later installation at the Stallburg in Vienna furnishes
a typically grim example of the violent attempts to cut and paste scarcely congruent
pictures together into impressive decorative wholes.91 In the German Empire, Rudolf
II takes pride of place (alongside Maximilian II, whose dilettantism ought to be written about at some point) as the foremost collector of antiques and paintings, notwithstanding the characteristic manifestations of his person and milieu, which have been
mentioned a number of times. Even the far North, which began to have a decisive
and fateful influence on Europe at this point, arrived on the scene in the form of
Christina, Queen of Sweden, with her characteristic penchant for the South; indeed,
this woman, erratic in her life and pursuits, would ultimately be laid to rest in the
shadow of the Throne of Saint Peter.92 The far Northeast makes its appearance right
at the end with the Muscovite Empire, which had been doing its best to assimilate
to the West ever since Peter the Great, however parodic these attempts often were.
Peter himself followed his own well-known inclinations in collecting Dutch pictures,
albeit without much taste; the founder of the magnificent collections of the Hermitage, however, was a western European woman: the German Princess of Anhalt,
who has gone down in history under the famous name of Catherine the Great. We
shall come to England presently. The enormous influence exerted by Italy during its
hegemony in almost every area of the visual and musical arts can hardly come as any
surprise; after all, the Roman Baroque and the Neapolitan opera were just beginning
their lap of honor around the world, and the Palladian style dominated the churches
and public buildings of even the Protestant countries — one could almost say it still
does. These three victors were followed by a mighty host of Italian conductors, musicians, singers, dancers, court poets, architects, and representatives of all the visual
arts who, as cavalieri and conti, basked in the favors of princely patronage from the
Manzanares to the Neva and from the Thames to the Danube, often to the dismay
and detriment of the indigenous artists alongside them. The fact that painting in
Spain and the southern Netherlands — both of them nationally distinctive and highly
independent regions — would be unthinkable without the precedent of Italian art is
too well known to merit any further discussion here.
The one exception to the rule was situated on marshland laboriously wrested
from the ocean, a single small territory that had only recently attained political
autonomy and was now rapidly becoming a colonial world power: the northern
Netherlands, cleft from the south by religious war. Though their bourgeois background excluded them from playing any leading role in the history of the great
collections, they are noteworthy because it was in this region that purely private
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THE SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTING
195
tastes — the phrase is Jacob Burckhardt’s — first reached maturity. An eye for landscapes and interiors had already started to develop in the old Netherlands at the end
of the fourteenth century. Full of intimate charm and perfectly suited to the context
of the private northern dwelling, their little pictures would go on to conquer the
pervasively monumental inclinations of Italy. Even now we have perhaps still not
fully realized just how inspirational and pioneering they were, and we often fail to
give sufficient emphasis to the fact that their art (and their music almost simultaneously) dominated that period. Of course, small-format devotional images for the
domestic context existed even in Giotto’s time, as a continuation of the Byzantine
icons that are now prevalent in eastern Europe and even beyond its cultural borders, but the main reason for that is religion; their sacred character is absolutely
paramount, their status as works of art secondary. This is still quite palpable in the
quattrocento, even if it was the Renaissance dwelling that determined the characteristic aspect of domestic or portable altars, reliefs of the Madonna in marble, plaster,
or clay, and portrait busts on mantels and lintels. The religious element clearly still
predominates even here. It is telling that the Della Robbia family workshop hardly
has a single profane artifact to show for all its many years of existence, and that
when child portraits were made in the manner of the well-known Florentine busts
of Jesus and John the Baptist (most of which were commissioned for churches), the
children were dressed in ecclesiastical garb.
Fig. 98.
David Teniers (Flemish,
1610–90). Archduke
Leopold Wilhelm in His
Gallery at Brussels,
1647–51.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
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196
SCHLOSSER
Even the Italian study, especially as it appears in the many charming Venetian
depictions of Saint Jerome, forgoes any actual intimacy and has a certain monumental coolness about it, just as the combination of monumentality and bareness
in present-day Italian dwellings tends to make them seem unhomely and uninhabited to the northerner. Then, in the sixteenth century, after a romantic prelude that
found its finest expression in the painted chests of the quattrocento, Italian painting
is inundated with a broad stream of profane works, though for the most part — and
this is typical of that land of abundant classical memories — these belong to a scholarly, mythological, and artificially enlivened world whose only connection to the
world of the living is literary. In the homeland of lavish frescoes and monumental palaces, life itself tends toward grandeur and openness and, for all the selfish
urges of the individual, retains a great deal of the social public realm of antiquity.
Things were very different indeed in the Germanic Northwest. When historic works
of religious art were thrown out of the churches and banished to “idol chambers,”
depriving visual artists of one of the greatest material resources they had inherited
from their ancestors, this was certainly more than just a religious movement; the
driving force behind it was actually a certain racial trait that can be discerned early
on. All this now comes to the fore in Holland.93 The private realm proper, intimate and atmospheric, without any monumental pretensions; the wide world seen
in small, freed from religious and classical compulsions, far from the noisy bustle
of the public realm. In this pragmatic mercantile nation, a thoroughly domesticated
art was at the same time curiously connected to material gain, to an incredibly lively
speculation on paintings, an art ranging from the genre painting and the Existenzbild* to the landscape of the family estate — rarely with staffage or academic heroization — right down to the flower, the animal, and the still life as the extreme opposite
of the spatially indulgent mythological frescoes in the palaces of Italy, where the
proud old name of Palatium had become so cheap.
Dutch painting is as much an intrinsic part of the development of modern cultural life as its kindred Flemish equivalent in the Catholic South. All too often we
overlook the fact that we are bound to it by far stronger ties — even where it seems
quite alien to us — than those that connect us to the grand painting of Italy, which
passed through the doors of history to the noisome fanfares of Giovanni Battista
Tiepolo in the eighteenth century. Given the marked and quite natural inclination
of the northern Protestant lands toward their confessional and ethnic brethren in
Holland, the two contrasting elements that determined the composition of the great
galleries of the eighteenth century were the masters of the cinquecento and seicento
on the one hand and the Dutch painters on the other.
The near two-hundred-year episode of Dutch painting reveals the emergence of
entirely new tastes, which in turn mark a complete shift of perspectives. However,
the modern elements here were picked up and taken forward by a country even further to the north, a country that assumed the full mantle of Holland’s legacy, along
with its politics: England.
It could be argued that the outposts of the French Revolution — an event that
shook all of western Europe — stood on British soil, and much the same could be
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THE SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTING
said of that epoch in German intellectual life which will forever be associated with
the name of Immanuel Kant, who was himself known to be of Scottish extraction,
and one need only utter the names of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin to give some
intimation of the enormous piece of modern cultural work that was accomplished
between them. It was on this remarkable island — where age-old antiquity still happily
coexists with ultramodernity — that the new age began, a good half century earlier
than on the Continent; the sharp caesura between the second half of the eighteenth
century and the first half of the nineteenth simply did not occur there as it did here.
England has always been an intensely artistic nation, especially since the end
of the fifteenth century, despite never having had its own art in any proper sense.
It has bestowed honors and earnings on artists from every autonomous region of
the mainland, Italians and Germans, Flemish and Dutch, and it may have been precisely this internationalism that prepared the ground for its further development.
According to one helpful aphorism, the historian is a prophet of the past and should
guard against looking to the future; nonetheless, we may recall that almost exactly
the same phenomena are presented in the field of music. Given that this country
once played a major part in the history of medieval counterpoint, that George Frideric Handel and Joseph Haydn received their highest honors there, it seems at best
rather rash to claim — and such assertions are not rare — that England has no talent
or future in this field.
It was on ground such as this, predestined as it was for a future of colonial and
commercial world power, that Britain’s breadth of vision and its remarkable eye
for quality were cultivated via foreign relations with all nations. Despite its insular seclusion and self-sufficiency, despite its rigid adherence to received customs,
prejudices, and historic survivals, these qualities have characterized British life ever
since the seventeenth century. And it is qualities such as these that explain the high
esteem in which that country has always been held by the best of our own nation:
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Goethe, and Arthur Schopenhauer, not to mention
the fact that this land of the puritanical sabbath and the worst bigotry— pursued with
grotesque ferocity by Schopenhauer himself — could produce a man such as Darwin.
It almost seems symbolic that William III of Orange, former governor general of
the free Netherlands, acceded to the English throne at the end of the seventeenth century. Just as Dutch domination of the waves and world trade passed to England in 1713
after the Peace of Utrecht, modern Netherlandish ways of life also continued to thrive
in the context of Britain’s old constitutional establishments, which remained exemplary on the Continent. And at this point something most memorable happened:
having been without its own art and dependent on foreigners since the Early Middle
Ages (in which it played a significant role), this country took up the artistic tradition
of its ancestral neighbors on the other side of the Channel and carried it forward
with great originality. England at that point was the only western country to have
fully fended off the Napoleonic tyranny; while the artistic traditions of the Continent
were ebbing away or temporarily submerged beneath the breakers of revolution and
empire, the English were left to tackle the problems of modern painting undisturbed.
Thus the banner of modern artistic perception was victoriously borne across from the
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eighteenth to the nineteenth century by artists like John Constable, J. M. W. Turner,
and, in their own modest but highly effective and influential way, the eminently
national school of British watercolorists, who are still largely unknown beyond those
shores. So it should come as no surprise — though this will only be acknowledged
in an age when judgments are less tarnished by boundless hate and partiality— that
England has now sent a new, idiosyncratic style out into the world, a style to which
one can deny everything other than the fact that it is thoroughly suffused with modern feeling and thinking, all the way down to its wondrous appreciation for history.
The history of the art collections in England, beginning with Henry VIII, peaks
in the splendid collections of the patron of Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens:
Charles I, under whom certain characteristic aspects of English collecting are already
quite evident.94 Having taken Mantua, he was able to seize the collection of paintings belonging to its duke; this included Andrea Mantegna’s famous The Triumphs
of Caesar, which is still at Hampton Court Palace to this day. We shall soon see how
significant this quattrocento influence would be. The external appearance and internal organization of the collection can still be reconstructed thanks to an excellent and
expert inventory compiled by the Dutch keeper of the king’s collections, Abraham
van der Doort. This splendid publication was printed by Bathoe in London in 1757.95
It presents an absolutely choice amateur collection, a prelude to the many similar
collections that were kept in a state of exclusive nobility, behind the closed doors
of the country seats and townhouses of the English aristocracy. The installation of
Charles’s collection at Whitehall Palace was quite typical of this. There was a very
close connection between the artworks and their owner. Rather than being brought
together into one rigid monumental gallery or some fantastical Kunstkammer, they
served as an intimate adornment to a highly refined interior, the Renaissance studiolo
of the Italian amateur writ large. Still, when this royal collector met his tragic end
on the scaffold, his possessions went under the hammer, and the majority of them
found their way overseas. Archduke Leopold Wilhelm was able to purchase many a
precious work at that time; they still adorn the gallery in Vienna to this day. He was
also fortunate enough to obtain a number of works from the collection of another
great collector, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, a minion of Charles I whose
collection can be taken as evidence of the rivalry between the English aristocracy
and the throne.96 The typical collector of this period, though, shares his name with a
society of friends of art even now: Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, whose gaze was
turned east toward Greece a good two hundred years before Thomas Bruce, seventh
Earl of Elgin, returned with the most famous booty in the British Museum. Arundel
regularly traveled through even the southernmost parts of Europe; in the North he
was the first and most distinguished great collector of ancient Greek artworks and
antiquities, and full of enterprising spirit. At that time, it was quite unheard of to
send an expedition of painters and academics to the Greek islands; when he did, they
came back with a considerable haul. The famous book by the German author Franciscus Junius the Younger, De pictura veterum, also emerged from Arundel’s circle
and was the first broadly conceived theory of antique art. This work epitomizes the
endeavors of English society under Charles I no less than the peculiar expression “to
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THE SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTING
transplant old Greece into England,” a programmatic phrase that appears in one of
the old guidebooks for the consummate cavalier some time before it was actually put
into practice in Arundel’s day. And it is just as telling that all this went hand in hand
with the study of British prehistory and an appreciation of indigenous historic monuments: William Camden’s archaeological anthology Britannia went to print as early
as the beginning of the seventeenth century.
There are some very important and fertile moments here. The activity of these
friends of art was quite modern and usually focused on the work of art itself — very
much in the vein of Italian collecting. Indeed, collections such as that of Charles I
are essentially very similar in their amateur tastes to those of the Renaissance; one
might also cite the collection at Lansdowne House, which is still arranged as it was
historically, or the rather more modern collection of Sir Richard Wallace at Hertford
House, which is now in public hands. But as well as this moment there was a quite
unique sense of the historical with a very specific focus on the beginnings and the
incunabula of art, both at home and abroad (in Italy, Greece, and the South), and,
what is even more telling, on their direct practical application. The English tours
began as early as the seventeenth century, along with the printing of the descriptions
of such journeys, which were always eagerly read and translated for their considerable scope. Here we may cite the account published by the erudite Edward Browne,
whose peregrinations took him all the way to Thessaly.97 Such travels were more
than just the usual prerequisite of a genteel education, the tour across Europe; they
took on a different coloring with the English, becoming considerably broader and
deeper. When the French archaeologist Jacob Spon undertook an expedition to
Greece and the Orient in 1675–76, his travel companion was an English gentleman,
George Wheeler. The English approach to travel — which ought not to be judged
by the caricatures — is today very different from that of other nations, and in a very
positive sense; no amount of resentful talk can conceal the fact that their culture
was a very different, deeply rooted culture. It is almost as if these descendants of
the Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans were the ancient roving spirit of the Germanic adventurers and explorers dressed up in modern garb. We have already noted
Arundel’s journeys and expeditions to regions of Turkey that will have seemed an
awfully long way off to the contemporary cavalier. The Italian guidebooks and travel
journals by the likes of Giacomo Barri98 (translated into English in 1679) and Luigi
Scaramuccia99 were always local in scope and always remained within the confines of
their own country; they never produced anything comparable to the Richardsons’ art
compendium of 1722, which had already been translated into French by 1728.100 All
English art, not just that of the Pre-Raphaelites, is permeated with a subtle archaizing tendency, and it is quite remarkable how soon and how strongly this nation was
attracted to the austere early periods in the visual arts. Hence the British were the
first great collectors of Greek antiquity and became the first great collectors of Italian quattrocento art too — and this in an age that idealized the cinquecento masters and the great Bolognese painters. The Englishmen living in eighteenth-century
Venice — John Strange, Felix Slade, James Hamilton, Sir Richard Colt Hoare — collected their treasures largely in secret; it is thanks to an English merchant by the
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name of Edward Solly that the lion’s share of the Ghent Altarpiece and a number
of rare early Italian masters at the Berlin gallery are where they are now. It was not
for no reason that Goethe, in his Italian Journey, confessed to having indulged in “a
daydream of being accompanied to Italy by an educated Englishman, well versed in
general history and the history of art.” And in Padua in 1786, on receiving his copy
of the edition of Andrea Palladio [The Four Books of Architecture] that had been prepared in Venice by Consul Joseph Smith (the well-known patron of Canaletto), he let
the following words slip: “One must give the English credit for having so long appreciated what is good and for their munificence and remarkable skill in publicising it.”
Alongside this historical tendency there is another trait, already discernible in
Arundel, that is perhaps even more important for the history of the collections,
namely those private initiatives that still exert a degree of influence on the public
institutions of Great Britain even now, and in a manner quite unheard of on the Continent. The most remarkable example of this interaction of public and private interests
is the foundation of the British Museum, forever notable as the first public museum
that could justifiably lay claim to the name, and from the very hour of its birth. No
sovereign was involved in its conception; it is the creation of the nation itself, born of
the proposals and patronage of private individuals, and above all the large bequest of
the Scottish physician Hans Sloane, which is the real core of the collection. And so it
was that the British Museum — the first modern state museum — came to be opened
by solemn act of Parliament at Sloane’s house in Bloomsbury in 1753. Its express purpose was to be of benefit to the public. It matters little that this public was originally
defined in rather restrictive terms; it is the new principle that counts. Such restrictions were merely the aftereffects of the vigorous tradition of the old princely and
private collections. In terms of its instructive and exemplary arrangement, though,
and no less as a place of work, the British Museum and its vast accumulation of holdings remain almost unique even today.
By remarkable coincidence, one extremely aristocratic old collection — the
Vatican’s — was declared state property and made accessible to the public by Pope
Clement XIV (Ganganelli) at almost exactly the same time as the foundation of the
British Museum, and in a state that could scarcely have been more different. Just a
few years before this, in 1739, the testament of Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, the last
lady of her line, had stipulated that the collections of this famous family of collectors should become the property of the Tuscan state. The oldest country, where the
whole movement began, and the youngest, most modern country thus meet at the
threshold of the modern art museum. In terms of ownership, the personal, private
art collection of the ruler was gradually usurped by the abstract state in the modern
sense; this development, which only a handful of the old collections were able to
resist, went furthest in the countries that had experienced great political upheavals,
France and Italy.
In the second half of the eighteenth century, as old and new views intersected,
there was a major shift within the continental collections. This was the period in
which the German princes concentrated on consolidating and expanding their collections of paintings, and it was at this point that the great galleries in Dresden and
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THE SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTING
Vienna assumed the characteristic forms that we recognize today. They never set out
to disavow the tastes of the old amateur collections from which they had emerged;
though the highly instructive history of the Saxon gallery cannot be capitulated
even in outline here, it evidences the momentous collaborative efforts of diplomats,
artists, critics, historians, and art lovers at every turn. The Italians of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, the Dutch, and the Flemish dominate in these galleries; their precursors remain firmly in the background. Today, with the altarpiece
by Tommaso da Modena having also returned to Karlštejn, the imperial gallery in
Vienna no longer possesses a single painting in the Giottesque style. This degree
of concentration went hand in hand with the reorganization of the collection; the
patchwork ensemble of the now obsolete Kunstkammern was separated out and
divided up. Parts of this process have lasted right up to our own time and in some
cases are still not entirely finished. Meanwhile, the historical study of art on the basis
of artworks themselves had become the norm since Winckelmann, and these scholarly endeavors in the field of historic art were soon followed by critical philological
research into the art of the modern era. A museum of plaster casts was opened in
Mannheim, famous in its day and most fruitful for Goethe’s outlook. Around the
end of the eighteenth century, Johann Dominik Fiorillo, an upstanding German of
Italian descent, held the first university lectures on the art history of the modern era
at Göttingen. The first gallery to be laid out according to modern scientific principles was finally established at Berlin and was provided, as we have said, with a rich
source of incunabula from the collection of an Englishman. These works were well
and wisely augmented thanks to the expert counsel of Carl Friedrich von Rumohr,
the most outstanding and brilliant German art academic of his day. When compared
to the princely galleries of yesteryear, though, this collection in Berlin — which has
since become a research institute of the first rank — seems to have had something of
the rather pedantic efficiency and straight-laced severity of the Prussian pedagogue
about it. At almost exactly the same time, the purchase by Ludwig I, King of Bavaria,
of the Boisserée collection of early German panel paintings and the famous collection of antique vases signaled a new direction for Munich.
Some of these endeavors were preceded by an epochal event in the history of
collecting: the foundation of the Parisian Musée Napoléon (fig. 99), conceived by
its brutal organizer as a central European museum.101 Though this remarkable creation violated so many old legal titles and existed for only a matter of years, its significance is not to be underestimated. Like the Corsican himself, it was born of the
Revolution, a revolution in which the sovereign will of the people had proclaimed
that the historic collections of their king were the property of the nation. Besides
providing an important stimulus to historical research — the large illustrated art histories of Charles Othon Frédéric Jean Baptiste Clarac, Jean Baptiste Louis Georges
Séroux d’Agincourt, and Leopoldo Cicognara all relied on the Napoleonic museum
to a greater or lesser extent — its main significance lay in the highly autocratic propagation of an idea that preceded its English equivalent by half a century: the idea
of a grand public museum owned by the state and open to all, without restrictive
limitations. True enough, the old princely collections had started making certain
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Fig. 99.
A room in the Musée
Napoléon, after Charles
Saunier, L’attirance de l’art
français au delà du Rhin,
de Napoléon Ier à
Napoléon III (Paris:
F. Alcan, n.d.).
concessions to the new spirit even before this, and we should not forget the liberality of the House of Lorraine, which also extended to its Tuscan lands. On the whole,
though, the Kabinette and “galleries” kept the character of the large private collections; as with the old Kunstkammern, their use was naturally subject to limitations,
and one has to admit that this was not always a bad thing — it was in their nature
after all. Nor should we forget that the broad masses of the public could not sensibly
have visited the museums without prior education and training. Such preconditions
were put in place only gradually; these days it strikes us as quite astonishing that the
old Kunstkammer in Berlin had little more than two hundred visitors each year as
recently as the beginning of the nineteenth century. One thing would depend on the
other here; the necessities of the modern age and its improved means of transportation were yet to arrive. All the same, reverberations from the aristocratic milieu of
the old princely collections can still be felt for quite some time. In the second half of
the nineteenth century one still had to slip a gratuity to the gallery stewards in some
places, though this practice has since been replaced with the more democratic form
of the admission fee. The Imperial Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, to take another
example, only granted entry to those in tailcoats and neckties, and even now it is
de rigueur to walk around the Russian collections bareheaded, a rule that will have
seemed especially odd to the southerner. Certain echoes from the past are also perceptible in the many stately rooms of the new imperial museums in Vienna. Though
the criticisms of the rooms themselves are not unfounded, their history ought not to
be judged one-sidedly; after all, this is where the monarch himself receives his guests
and gives them the honor of seeing his precious hereditary treasures. The princely
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THE SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTING
treasuries were naturally the very last collections to open their doors to the public,
and visiting them is understandably still subject to certain special conditions even
now. In the 1870s the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden was still only accessible to limited
numbers of people on relatively expensive guided tours. On this subject it is not without interest to consult the opinion of a man such as Johann Georg Theodor Graesse,
whose literary activities also mark him out as the descendant of an earlier age.102
These observations will strike many people as being all too brief, and indeed
they are. But the author is of the opinion that the evolution of collecting in the modern era is far too rich and dense, and — for the life of the present — far too important
to be appended as an afterthought to a historical account of what lies finished and
static behind us. It really ought to be described as a subject in its own right, though
this can only sensibly be undertaken by someone who is both active in the field and
yet still able to approach the task with an open mind and clarity of vision.
In any case, there are a great many other things that ought to be mentioned here,
some still partly accessible to the present, some in the full obscurity of the past. First
there is the emergence of medieval tastes in the Romantic era, their playful expression at Franzensburg Castle in Laxenburg, and their more serious and methodical
manifestation at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg. Then there are
the various attempts, some more successful than others, to turn museums into textbook illustrations of cultural history. Another topic would be the specialization of
the modern collections in the context of the prevailing research principles of the
century just passed. And last but not least there is the important role and cultural
politics of the museums of applied art, another modern idea, which — having first
been put into practice in London, then, on the Continent, in Vienna — will forever
be associated with the name of Gottfried Semper. All these things are still intimately
connected with the life of the present. The complicated and controversial question
of the future of the modern museum and the satisfactory internal and external organization of the same can scarcely be touched upon here. It is merely the subjective conviction of the author when we conclude by saying that a fruitful solution to
this truly difficult problem is to be found not in abstractions and formulas but in
a sympathetic and moderate synthesis of past amateur tastes and the endeavors of
modern evolutionary research. Our public collections should not be mere arsenals
for artists and academics, nor should they be run according to one-sided principles
based on transient and arbitrary value judgments. The thread that leads through this
thoroughly Minoan labyrinth will perhaps be found in a conception of artistic value
that is at once freer and more rigorous than it has been in the past.
Each individual collection will have to be considered on its own merits, along
with the particular ways in which it has evolved; the fatal desire to make everything
conform to a single pattern is to be avoided wherever possible. Above all we must
get away from the once popular practice of taking whatever fine facade happens to
be available and shoehorning the artworks into it. This does not take their specific
needs and requirements into account and is comparable to filling a run-of-the-mill
apartment block with run-of-the-mill furniture. A selection of the best possible
pieces is certainly desirable; one may criticize the old notion of the cimelia chamber
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SCHLOSSER
with its adjacent representative rooms, but there is much to be said for it. Most
museums of applied art have specific didactic purposes and will need to include
chronological presentations of technical developments and so on; but where this is
not the case, the best approach will be to make temporal and geographic distinctions between more or less large or small groups of works with as much sensitivity
and taste as possible, without creating cluttered or theatrical still lifes. Each object
should be augmented and elucidated by the others without endless rows of similar
things tiring and numbing the viewer’s senses. Of course, this again entails a risk
of fragmentation and desultory dispersion. And one last thing: the exclusivity and
unapproachability of the old collections has given way to the reaction of an almost
unbounded accessibility. Serious concerns about this have already been raised in
some quarters, and people have rightly pointed to the dangers of taking an intrinsically good and sensible principle too far.103
There is no doubt that modern exhibition practices can be very stimulating, but
when we encounter them — especially the loan exhibitions — we are often reminded
of a thoughtful adage on the theme of museums by Goethe, who was himself an
important and highly individual collector:
Hauling paintings to and fro,
Lost and new obtained;
Back, across, and forth they go,
What’s left to us is maimed.
But just as art cannot be the exclusive preserve of artists and academics, nor should
our museums — institutions that have recently been subjected to some very superficial criticisms — only serve the purpose of heavy-handed instruction, to say nothing
of confused cultural philistinism. It is just as important, if not more so, that they
should also satisfy the noblest pleasures that are afforded by one of the greatest and
most profound powers in this life. This is the entitlement of every genuinely, not just
apparently, cultured society. The idea of the museum is certainly not beyond criticism, it is not and cannot be an ideal. As with all human institutions, it is subject to
changing views and requirements. It would be folly to consider the museum as an
end in itself. It can only ever be a means of preserving the heritage of our ancestors
in as faithful, unimpaired, and undiminished a form as possible, both for ourselves
and for whatever benefit our descendants are willing and able to derive from it.
This conservative activity, hindered and impaired as it so often is by modern life,
constitutes the justification and, should it ever be necessary, the apologia for the
museum. Those who forget and repudiate their origins only demean themselves;
whether those origins are noble or humble is of no consequence so long as one
confronts them from a position of inner freedom and self-awareness. After all, man,
who is the summation of his ancestors first and foremost, is the only creature to have
been bestowed with the ambivalent gift of being able to look forward and back from
a present that can never be apprehended.
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NOTES
Notes
No summary of the subject seems to have been written yet. What can be gleaned
from the archaeological handbooks by Karl Ottfried Müller [Ancient Art and Its
Remains, or a Manual of the Archaeology of Art, trans. John Leitch (London: A. Fullarton, 1847)], Karl Bernhard Stark [Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst (Leipzig:
W. Engelmann, 1880)], Karl Sittl [Archäologie der Kunst (Munich: Beck, 1895–97)],
and others relates almost exclusively to antique art. The following two essays are
also by archaeologists: Ernst Curtius, “Kunstsammlungen, ihre Geschichte und ihre
Bestimmung,” in Alterthum und Gegenwart: Gesammelte Reden und Vorträge, 3 vols.
(Berlin: Wilhelm Hertz, 1875–89), vol. 1, 99; and Gustav Hirschfeld, “Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte von Kunstsammlungen,” Nord und Süd. Eine deutsche Monatsschrift
52 (1890): 55. The collectors of the Italian Renaissance are dealt with at some length
in a recently discovered study from the literary estate of Jacob Burckhardt, who is
as brilliant and instructive as ever; see Burckhardt, Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte von
Italien (Basel: Lendorf, 1898). The three volumes by Fernand de Mély and Edmund
Bishop, Bibliographie générale des inventaires imprimés (Paris: E. Leroux, 1892–95),
are very useful indeed. For Italy, see the anthology by Marchese Giuseppe Campori,
Raccolta di cataloghi ed inventarii inediti di quadri, statue, disegni, bronzi, dorerie,
smalti, medaglie, avorii, ecc., dal secolo XV al secolo XIX (Modena: Vincenzi, 1870), as
well as the Documenti inediti per servire alla storia dei musei d’Italiai, published by
the ministero della pubblica instruzione, 4 vols. (Florence, Rome: Bencini, 1878–80).
Despite the limitations suggested by the title, there is much of service in the old work
by Gustav Friedrich Klemm, Zur Geschichte der Sammlungen für Wissenschaft und
Kunst in Deutschland, 2nd ed. (Zerbst: G. A. Kummer, 1838). The historical literature
on the Kunstkammern will be given below.
2. Karl Groos, Die Spiele der Menschen (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1899). [Karl Groos, The
Play of Man, trans. J. Mark Baldwin (London: Heinemann, 1901).]
3. Heinrich Schurtz, Urgeschichte der Kultur (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1900),
386.
4. A large number of notices pertaining to this are collected in Ludwig Friedländer,
Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms in der Zeit von August bis zum Ausgang
der Antonine, 3 vols, 6th ed. (Leipzig: G. Hirzel, 1889), vol. 2, 170ff.
5. See Friedländer, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms, 178f.
6. This is nowhere presented more beautifully and incisively than in Jacob Burckhardt’s
posthumously published lectures on the cultural history of Greece, a very personal
book that was held back by the author as long as he lived for just that reason. See
Burckhardt, Griechische Kulturgeschichte, ed. Johann Jacob Oeri, 4 vols. (Berlin,
Stuttgart: Spemann, 1898–1902). [Jacob Burckhardt, History of Greek Culture, trans.
Palmer Hilty (New York: Ungar, 1963).]
7. Max Fränkel, “Gemälde-Sammlungen und Gemälde-Forschung in Pergamon,” Jahrbuch des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 6 (1891): 49f.
8. Friedländer, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms, 174.
9. See Julius von Schlosser, “Kleinasiatische und thrakische Münzbilder der Kaiserzeit,”
Numismatische Zeitschrift 23 (1891): 19; and Habich, “Hermes Diskobolos,” Jahrbuch
des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 13 (1898): 57f. The passage from
Josephus Flavius, Antiqu. Jud. (XX, 9. 4) cited in Friedländer (Darstellungen aus
der Sittengeschichte Roms, vol. 3) reads as follows: τὴν πᾶσαν δὲ πόλιν ἀνδριάντων
ἀναθέσεσιν καὶ ταῖς τῶν ἀρχαίων ἀποτύποις εἰκόσιν ἐκόσμει (he also adorned the
1.
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whole city by erecting statues, as well as replicas of ancient sculptures). [English
translation is from Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, Volume IX: Book 20, trans.
Louis H. Feldman. Loeb Classical Library 456 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1965), 112–13.]
10. Much the same could be said of the church in nearby Sankt Donat, among many
others.
11. See Heinrich Otte, Handbuch der kirchlichen Kunst-Archäologie des deutschen Mittelalters, 5th ed. (Leipzig: Weigel, 1883–85), 1: 365; and Ferdinand Piper, Mythologie
und Symbolik der christlichen Kunst von der ältesten Zeit bis in’s sechzehnte Jahrhundert (Weimar: Landes-Industrie-Comptoir, 1847), 1: 48. At the Museo Lapidario in
Mantua there is an Arabic cippus from 1296 that had been buried in the crypt of San
Francesco in Assisi.
12. Wilhelm Ferdinand Chassot von Florencourt, “Der gesteinigte Venus-torso zu St.
Matthias bei Trier,” Jahrbücher des Vereins von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinland 13
(1848): 128. See now the essay by L. Radermacher, “Venus in Ketten,” Westdeutsche
Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst 24 (1905): 219.
13. Henry Barbet de Jouy and Jules Jacquemart, Les gemmes et joyaux de la couronne, 2
vols. (Paris: Musée Impérial du Louvre, 1865), pl. 5 (sardonyx chalice), pl. 6 (porphyry
vessel from Egypt), pl. 7 (crystal of Eleanor of Aquitaine), pl. 9 (Arabian crystal).
14. A historical description can be found in Giovanni Antonio Meschinello, La chiesa
ducale di S. Marco, 3 vols. (Venice: Baronchelli, 1753).
15. Ferdinand Denis, Le monde enchanté; cosmographie et histoire naturelle fantastiques
du moyen âge (Paris: Vattier, 1843).
16. Similar bacini can also be seen at San Francesco in Bologna. Many such things are
listed in Otte, Handbuch der kirchlichen Kunst-Archäologie, 1: 209, etc., and in Joseph
Sauer, Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes und seiner Ausstattung in der Auffassung des Mittelalters (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herdersche Verlagshandlung, 1902), 211f., to which the
reader is referred for the sake of brevity.
17. Otte, Handbuch der kirchlichen Kunst-Archäologie, 1: 213, and especially Sauer, Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes, 211f. As evidence of the enormous value that was attached
to these things we might here cite one such unicorn tusk from the 1492 inventory of
the Medici household, where its value was estimated at 6,000 florins; under Clement VII another was sold for no less than 27,000 ducats. Eugène Müntz, Les collections
des Medici au XVe siècle (Paris: Rouam, 1888), 16, 66. One six-foot specimen is still
exhibited as a special tourist attraction at the Rosenborg in Copenhagen; another of
the same length is mentioned in the 1631 inventory of the Mantuan Gonzagas; see
Carlo d’Arco, Delle arti e degli artifici di Mantova (Mantua: Agazzi, 1857–59), 2: 174.
A few other examples come to mind: the most elaborately carved tusk from the old
Farmacia Albrizzi, a distinctive piece from its inventory, now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Venice; in the same city, a very large specimen in the treasury
of San Marco; and then one with a beautifully carved Renaissance pedestal at the
Museo Civico Archeologico in Bologna. An eight-foot unicorn tusk in the choir of
Strasbourg Cathedral is pointed out to the Swiss visitors with due pride in Johann
Fischart, Das Glückhaffte Schiff von Zürich (Strasbourg: Jobin, 1576).
18. Heinrich Pogatscher, “Von Schlangenhörnern und Schlangenzungen vornehmlich
im 14. Jahrhunderte (mit Urkunden und Akten aus dem vaticanischen Archive),”
Römische Quartalschrift 12 (1898): 162ff.
19. Otte, Handbuch der kirchlichen Kunst-Archäologie, 1:213n11.
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
NOTES
20. Hans Petschnig, “Die Wallfahrtskirche zu Maria-Zell in Steiermark,” Mittheilungen
der k. k. Central-Commission zur Erforschung und Erhaltung der Baudenkmale 14
(1869): 88.
21. See among others Marco Lastri, L’Osservatore Fiorentino sugli edifizi della sua patria,
3rd ed., 8 vols. (Florence: Ricci, 1821), 2:153ff.; and Aby Warburg, Bildniskunst und
florentinisches Bürgertum (Leipzig: Seemann, 1902), 29f.
22. This was perhaps the first museum of waxwork figures open to the paying public;
“wax sculptor to the crown” Antoine Benoist was granted a royal patent for it in 1668.
Besides portraits of princely figures from the French court and the Doges of Genoa,
there were also figures of oriental emissaries from Siam, Morocco, Moscow, and
Algeria. See “Un musée de figures de cire au XVIIe siècle,” Bulletin de la Société de
l’histoire de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France 23 (1896): 201f. (According to a note for which I
am grateful to the late Eugène Müntz.)
23. See especially Stephan Beissel, Die Aachenfahrt. Verehrung der Aachener Heiligtümer
seit den Tagen Karls des Grossen bis in unsere Zeit (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder,
1902), supplementary vol. 21, supplementary no. 82 of the Stimmen aus Maria-Laach:
Katholische Blätter.
24. For a list of known reliquary books, see Otte, Handbuch der kirchlichen KunstArchäologie, 1:187. For the extant handwritten reliquary book from Hall, see Ludwig
Hohenbühel, “Die Holzschnitte der Handschrift des Heilthum-Büchleins im PfarrArchive zu Hall in Tyrol,” Mittheilungen der k. k. Central-Commission zur Erforschung
und Erhaltung der kunst- und historischen Denkmale N.S. 9 (1883): 5–15, 63–70, 115–30.
25. For the inventory of the treasury of Charles V of France, see Jules Labarte, Inventaire
du mobilier de Charles V, Roi de France (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1879); for that
of Louis d’Anjou, see Léon Emmanuel Simon Joseph de Laborde, Notice des émaux
exposés dans les galeries du Musée du Louvre, vol. 2 (Paris: Vinchon, 1853). See also the
more recent publication by Henri Moranvillé, Inventaire de l’orfèvrerie et des joyaux de
Louis I duc d’Anjou (Paris: Leroux, 1903).
26. Jules Guiffrey, ed., Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry (1401–1416), 2 vols. (Paris: E.
Leroux, 1894–96).
27. Alfred de Champeaux and Paul Gauchery, Les travaux d’art exécutés pour Jean de
France, duc de Berry. Avec une étude biographique sur les artistes employés par ce
prince (Paris: Champion, 1894).
28. Pierre Jean-Baptiste Legrand d’Aussy, “De l’ouvrage manuscrit, intitulé le Chevalier
Errant,” Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale 5 (1798–99):
564.
29. Wolfgang von Oettingen, Antonio Averlino Filarete’s Tractat über die Baukunst nebst
seinen Büchern von der Zeichenkunst und den Bauten der Medici, vol. 3 in the series
“Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte” (Vienna: Graeser, 1890), 659. [Antonio Averlino Filarete, Treatise on Architecture, trans. John R. Spencer, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1965), 1: 317.]
30. It does not appear in the inventories, so Filarete’s remark is probably erroneous.
31. On these missoria see Eugène Piot, “Sur un missorium de la collection M. Eug. Piot,”
Gazette archéologique 11 (1886): 185, which also gives an illustration of a lead copy of
one such Bellerophon from the Middle Ages.
32. Julius von Schlosser, “Die ältesten Medaillen und die Antike,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 18 (1897): 64–108.
33. Alexander Fisher, “The Art of True Enamelling upon Metals — Part 1,” The Studio: An
207
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208
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Illustrated Magazine of Fine Art and Applied Art 22 (1901): 243.
34. One quite remarkable timepiece of this sort is the fifteenth-century Burgundian clock
owned by Max von Leber in Vienna; it was often shown at exhibitions in Paris (see
fig. 13). It comes from one of the historic private collections in Vienna, that of Prince
Eduard von Collalto. See Max Edler von Leber, Notice sur l’horloge gothique construite
vers 1430 pour Philippe III, dit le Bon, duc de Bourgogne (Vienna: Köhler, 1877), with
photograph.
35. A number of animal figures from the old Ambras collection were coated with fragrant
pastes in this way and can still be found at the Hofmuseum in Vienna, for example the
bear with musket from the sixteenth century (see fig. 14).
36. The principal work here is the well-known (unfinished) publication by Léon Emmanuel Simon Joseph de Laborde, Les Ducs de Bourgogne: Études sur les lettres, les arts et
l’industrie pendant le XV e siècle et plus particulièrement dans les Pays-Bas et le duché
de Bourgogne, 3 vols. (Paris: Plon Frères, 1849–52); see also Chrétien César Auguste
Dehaisnes, Documents et extraits divers concernant l’histoire de l’art dans la Flandre,
l’Artois et le Hainaut avant de XV e siècle, 2 vols. (Lille: Imprimerie L. Danel, 1886);
the compendious Alexandre Joseph Pinchart, Archives des Arts, Sciences et Lettres, 3
vols. (Ghent: Hebbelynck, 1860–81); and the new, recently published work by Bernard
Prost, Inventaires mobiliers et extraits des comptes des Ducs de Bourgogne de la maison
de Valois (1363–1477), vol. 1 (Paris: E. Leroux, 1902).
37. The copy at the library in Paris has been published in full by Henri-Victor Michelant,
“Inventaire des vaiselles, joyaux, tapisseries, peintures, manuscrits, etc., de Marguerite
d’Autriche, régente et gouvernante des Pays-Bas, dressé en son palais de Malines, le 9
juillet 1523,” Compte rendu des séances de la Commission royale d’histoire, ou, Recueil
de ses bulletins 12 (1871): 5–78, 83–156; and in part — albeit with concordances from
André Joseph Ghislain le Glay, Correspondance de l’Empereur Maximilien I er et de
Marguerite d’Autriche, 2 vols. (Paris: Renouard, 1839) — by Léon Emmanuel Simon
Joseph de Laborde, “Inventaire des tableaux, livres, joyaux et meubles de Marguerite
d’Autriche, fille de Marie de Bourgogne et de Maximilien, Empereur d’Allemagne, fait
enconclud en la ville d’Anvers le XVII d’Avril MXV e XXIIII,” Revue archéologique 7
(1850): 36–57. The copy in the Staatsarchiv in Vienna has been published by Heinrich
Zimmermann, “Urkunden und Regesten,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 3 (1885): xciii, no. 2979. Other important lists
of precious artifacts from Margaret’s collection can be found in the same journal
under Voltelini, “Urkunden und Regesten,” 11 (1890): v, no. 6285; Rudolf Beer, “Acten,
Regesten und Inventare,” 12 (1891): cx, no. 8347; and Voltelini, “Urkunden und
Regesten,” 13 (1892): cxii, no. 9118. See also Gustav Glück, “Kinderbildnisse aus der
Sammlung Margaretens von Österreich,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen
des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 25 (1905): 227.
38. Christoph Gottlieb von Murr, Description du cabinet de Monsieur Paul de Praun à
Nuremberg (Nuremberg: Schneider, 1797). Paul de Praun’s dates are 1548–1616.
39. Excerpts from their inventory of 1573 have been published by Anton Springer, “Inventare der Imhoff ’schen Kunstkammer zu Nürnberg,” Mittheilungen der k. k. CentralCommission zur Erforschung und Erhaltung der Baudenkmale 5 (1860): 352–57. The
main treasure of course was the large collection of Dürers.
40. Joseph Hirn, Erzherzog Ferdinand II. von Tirol. Geschichte seiner Regierung und seiner
Länder, 2 vols. (Innsbruck: Wagner’sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, 1885–1887);
Heinrich Zimmermann, “Die Renaissance,” in Kunstgeschichtliche Charakterbilder
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
NOTES
aus Österreich-Ungarn, ed. Albert Ilg (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1893), 163–255; and Albert
Ilg, “Erzherzog Ferdinand von Tirol im Lichte der humanistischen Zeitbildung,”
Monatsblätter des wissenschaftlichen Club in Wien 7 (1880): 1–12. The official guide
to Ambras is by Albert Ilg and Wendelin Boeheim, Das k. k. Schloss Ambras in Tirol.
Beschreibung des Gebäudes und der Sammlungen (Vienna: Holzhausen, 1882). For
photographic views of Schloss Ambras with text by Jacob Stockbauer, see F. Bopp
and Jacob Stockbauer, Das k. k. Schloss Ambras bei Innsbruck in Tirol (Nuremberg:
Soldan, 1880). The most important of the old Ambras inventories (from 1596, at the
Hofbibliothek) has been published under no. 5556 by Wendelin Boeheim, “Urkunden
und Regesten aus der k. k. Hofbibliothek,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 7 (1888): xci–cccxiii. The growth of the collection
can be followed at the Hofmuseum through further inventory manuscripts from the
years 1613, 1621, 1730 (compiled by the great Anton Roschmann), and 1788 (by Johann
Primisser).
41. David von Schönherr, “Erzherzog Ferdinand von Tirol als Architekt,” Repertorium für
Kunstwissenschaft 1 (1876): 28–44.
42. For an accessible history of the glassworks, see David von Schönherr, Gesammelte
Schriften, ed. Michael Mayr, 2 vols. (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1900–1902), 1: 406.
43. Having recognized the talent of one young thrall from his Bohemian estates, Ferdinand paid to have him trained as a painter. The artist in question was Matthias
Hutský, who paid tribute to the archduke with a dedicated volume of vellum copies of
the early Bohemian wall paintings in the Wenceslas Chapel at Prague Cathedral. The
famous Netherlandish sculptor Pietro Francavilla also spent time at Ferdinand’s court
in Innsbruck; the oral history of his remarkable alpine ascent with the archduke is
recounted at length in Baldinucci’s life of the artist. Ferdinand’s comedy, the Speculum
vitae humanae, has been reissued by Jacob Minor in the “Neudrucke deutscher Litteraturwerke des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts” (Halle a. S.: Niemeyer, 1889).
44. The following old descriptions of Ambras are particularly noteworthy: that by the
Netherlandish archaeologist Stefan Pighius, who, in his capacity as Master of the
Household of the Prince of Cleve, visited Ambras in 1574 and described it in his
account of that squire’s journey; see Stephanus Pighius, Hercules Prodicius, seu
principis juventutis vita et peregrinatio (Antwerp: Plantini, 1587); the description by
the French physician and numismatist Charles Patin, Relations historiques et curieuses
de Voyages en Allemagne, Angleterre, Hollande, Boheme, Suisse, etc. (Amsterdam:
Mortier, 1695) [Charles Patin, Travels thro’ Germany, Bohemia, Swisserland, Holland,
and other parts of Europe (London: Swall and Child, 1697)], has a wealth of information about the collections as they stood in 1695; finally, for the 1628 report by the
Augsburg patrician Philipp Hainhofer, see Oscar Doering, Des Augsburger Patriciers
Philipp Hainhofer Reisen nach Innsbruck und Dresden, vol. 10 in the series Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte (Vienna: Graeser, 1901). There is a valuable and lengthy
description in Johann Georg Keyssler, Joh. Georg Keysslers Neüeste Reise . . . durch
Teütschland, Böhmen, Ungarn, die Schweitz, Italien und Lothringen (Hanover: Förster,
1751), 25–38 [John George Keysler, Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary,
Switzerland, Italy, and Lorrain, 4 vols. (London: Linde and Field, 1756–57)], which,
as with all the early travel literature, contains valuable information on the historic
collections. The oldest printed catalog of the Ambras collection after its transfer to
Vienna is of course by the great Alois Primisser, Die kaiserlich-königliche AmbraserSammlung (Vienna: Heubner, 1819); it is thanks to him that the near-forgotten
209
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SCHLOSSER
collection became more widely known again. A brief description of the collection
while still in the Tyrol had already been published by the elder Primisser, Johann,
as Kurze Nachricht von dem k. k. Raritätenkabinet zu Ambras (Innsbruck: Wagner,
1777). The last extensive catalog before the complete dissolution of the old collection
was compiled by Eduard Freiherr von Sacken, Die k. k. Ambraser-Sammlung, 2 vols.
(Vienna: Braumüller, 1855). And here we may refer in passing to the albums of objects
selected from the collections of applied art by Albert Ilg, Album von Objecten aus der
Sammlung kunstindustrieller Gegenstände des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses: Arbeiten der
Goldschmiede- und Steinschlifftechnik (Vienna: Löwy, 1895); and by the present author,
Album ausgewählter Gegenstände der kunstindustriellen Sammlung des Allerhöchsten
Kaiserhauses (Vienna: Schroll, 1901); these contain good illustrations of many pieces
from Ambras that are discussed in the text.
45. See the long correspondence on this in David von Schönherr, “Urkunden und
Regesten aus dem k. k. Statthalterei-Archiv in Innsbruck,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 11 (1890): no. 7236ff.
46. Theodor Distel, “Handsteine Kurfürst Christians I. von Sachsen,” Zeitschrift für Museologie und Antiquitätenkunde sowie für verwandte Wissenschaften 5 (1882): 4–5.
47. For compendious information on this, see the article by Eugène de Bricqueville, “Les
collections d’instruments de musique au XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècle,” in Bricqueville, Un coin de la curiosité: Les anciens instruments de musique (Paris: Libraire de
l’art, 1894), 15–25. An outstanding old collection from Este is now in the museum of
His Imperial and Royal Highness the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Vienna.
48. For the remarkable correspondence between Johannes Kepler and Wallenstein
concerning the latter’s horoscope, see Wilhelm Julius Förster, Himmelskunde und
Weissagung (Berlin: Edelheim, 1901).
49. Boeheim, “Urkunden und Regesten,” xcii–xciii, nos. 4745–49; Ferdinand von
Hochstetter, “Über mexikanische Reliquien aus der Zeit Montezuma’s in der k. k.
Ambraser Sammlung,” Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Philosophisch-Historische Classe 35 (1885): 83–104; Zelia Nuttall, “Das Prachtstück altmexikanischer Federarbeit aus der Zeit Montezuma’s im Wiener Museum,” Abhandlungen und Berichte des königlichen zoologischen anthropologisch-ethnographischen
Museums zu Dresden 1 (1886/87): 1–29; Max Uhle, “Zur Deutung des in Wien verwahrten altmexikanischen Federschmuckes,” Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft
für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte (1891): 144–56; and lastly Franz Heger,
“Altmexikanische Reliquien aus dem Schlosse Ambras in Tirol,” Annalen des k. k.
naturhistorischen Hofmuseums 7 (1892): 379–400, with five plates.
50. There was also one copy in the collection of Leopold Wilhelm (inv. no. 202); others
can be seen at the Städtisches Museum in Braunschweig, the Museo Arqueológico
Nacional in Madrid, and elsewhere.
51. Both clothed and naked in Peter Lambeck, Petri Lambecii Hamburgensis Commentariorum de Augustissima Bibliotheca Caesarea Vindobenensi, ed. Adam F. Kollár, 8
vols. (Vienna: Typis & sumptibus Joan. Thomae Nob. De Trattnern, 1766–82), 6: 452.
Lambecius, De bibl. Vindob., vol. 6, 452. See also Anton Ritter von Perger, “Über den
Alraun,” Berichte und Mittheilungen des Alterthums-Vereines zu Wien 5 (1861): 259–69.
52. See Heinrich Modern, “Geweihte Schwerter und Hüte in den kunsthistorischen
Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 22 (1901): 127–68.
53. Fol. 459, verso: “An Indian cloth with a large bird just like a swan painted on it along
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NOTES
with other birds and all sorts of leafage. — An Indian cloth with Indian houses
painted on it; there are Indians sitting together in the house and one of them is
inscribing a red skirt. — A further Indian cloth with several Indian houses painted
on it; inside there are women playing string instruments.”
54. An old inventory of this collection has been printed by the Gesellschaft für pommersche Geschichte und Alterthumskunde, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kunst und ihrer
Denkmäler in Pommern,” Baltische Studien 20 (1864): 108–48; for Giovio’s collection
of portraits, see Eugène Müntz, “Le Musée de portraits de Paul Jove. Contributions
pour servir à l’iconographie du moyen âge et de la renaissance,” Mémoires de l’Institut
national de France, Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres 36 (1901): 249–343; for
the Ambras miniatures, see the extensive collection of materials in Friedrich Kenner,
“Die Porträtsammlung des Erzherzogs Ferdinand von Tirol,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 14 (1893): 37–186; 15 (1894):
147–259; 17 (1896): 101–274; 18 (1897): 135–261; 19 (1898): 6–146.
55. The inventory of the estate from 1590 has been published in excerpts by Heinrich
Zimmermann, “Urkunden, Acten und Regesten aus dem Archiv des k. k. Ministeriums des Innern,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten
Kaiserhauses 7 (1888): xv–lxxxiv, esp. xviif. The inventory from the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries has been published by Joseph Wastler, “Zur Geschichte der
Schatz-, Kunst- und Rüstkammer in der k. k. Burg zu Grätz,” Mittheilungen der k. k.
Central-Commission zur Erforschung und Erhaltung der kunst- und historischen Denkmale 5 (1879): cxxxviii–cxlvi; 6 (1880): xxix–xxxv, lv–lxii, xcvi–cv, cxlviii–cli; 7 (1881):
xxxiv–xlii, xcviii; and by Fritz Pichler, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der landesfürstlichen
Rüst- und Kunstkammer sowie des landesfürstlichen Zeughauses zu Grätz,” Archiv
für österreichische Geschichte 61 (1880): 223–66. See also Josef Wastler, Das Kunstleben am Hofe zu Graz unter den Herzogen von Steiermark, den Erzherzogen Karl und
Ferdinand (Graz: Selbstverlag des Verfassers, 1897). An inventory of the collection
made on the occasion of its transfer to Vienna (1765) has just been published by
Heinrich Zimmermann, “Inventare, Akten und Regesten aus der Registratur seiner k.
und k. apostolischen Majestät Oberstkämmereramtes,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen
Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 24 (1903): i–lxxxv, esp. no. 19325f.
56. Printed in Jacob Stockbauer, Die Kunstbestrebungen am bayerischen Hofe unter Herzog Albert V. und seinem Nachfolger Wilhelm V., vol. 8 in the series “Quellenschriften
für Kunstgeschichte” (Vienna: Braumüller, 1874).
57. Here we might also point out that there was and still is a considerable collection of
prints and scrolls of this kind in the collection at Ambras.
58. For the Kunstkammer at the Hradčany, see the introduction to Eduard Ritter von
Engerth, Kunsthistorische Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses. Gemälde.
Beschreibendes Verzeichniss, 3 vols. (Vienna: Kunsthistorische Sammlungen des
allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, 1882–86), vol. 1, xivf.; and the essay by Zimmermann,
“Die Renaissance”; see also Josef Svátek, “Die Rudolfinische Kunstkammer in
Prag,” in Svátek, Kulturhistorische Bilder aus Böhmen (Vienna: Braumüller, 1879),
225–72, which, incidentally, is not an especially reliable work; Adolfo Venturi, “Zur
Geschichte der Kunstsammlungen Kaiser Rudolf II.,” Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 8 (1885): 1–23; Ludwig Urlichs, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kunstbestrebungen und Sammlungen Kaiser Rudolf ’s II.,” Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 5 (1870):
47–53, 81–85, 136–42; and Josef Neuwirth, “Rudolf II. als Dürer-Sammler,” in Xenia
Austriaca: Festschrift der österreichischen Mittelschulen zur 42. Versammlung deutscher
211
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Philologen und Schulmänner in Wien, 2 vols. (Vienna: Gerold, 1893), 1: 187–225.
Several abridged summaries (supposedly from 1608) are in Joseph von Hormayr,
“Rudolphs II. Schatz- und Wunderkammer zu Prag. 1608,” Taschenbuch für die
vaterländische Geschichte 27 (1838): 282–6. An excellent guide to the rather intricate
question of the old inventories can now be gleaned from this preliminary report by
Heinrich Zimmermann, “Das Inventar der Prager Schatz- und Kunstkammer vom
6. Dezember 1621,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten
Kaiserhauses 25 (1905): xiii–lxxv. No original inventory from the time of Rudolf II
has yet been found, despite every effort. We are forced to rely on the somewhat later
inventory of 1621, which, thanks to Zimmermann, has now been published for the
first time, with carefully compiled concordances, from the manuscript at the Reichsfinanzarchiv in Vienna. This renders obsolete the earlier, incomplete publications by
Joseph Chmel, Die Handschriften der k. k. Hofbibliothek in Wien, 2 vols. (Vienna: Gerold, 1840–41), 2: 1–12; and Anton Ritter von Perger, “Studien zur Geschichte der k. k.
Gemäldegallerie im Belvedere zu Wien,” Berichte und Mittheilungen des AlterthumsVereines zu Wien 7 (1864): 99–168, esp. 104f., which only includes the paintings. There
is a valuable supplement — somehow it ended up in Wolfenbüttel — in the form of a
list enumerating all those objects from the Prague Kunstkammer that came to Vienna
before 1621; it has been edited by Wilhelm Köhler, “Aktenstücke zur Geschichte der
Wiener Kunstkammer in der herzoglichen Bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel,” Jahrbuch
der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 26 (1906/07): i–xx.
Then there are the two inventories found at Skokloster on Lake Mälaren by Beda
Dudik, “Die Rudolphinische Kunst- und Raritätenkammer in Prag,” Mittheilungen
der k. k. Central-Commission zur Erforschung und Erhaltung der Baudenkmale 12
(1867): xxxiii–xliv, the first of which was made before the Swedish plundering of
1648. Finally, the inventory of Queen Christina of Sweden from 1652 should also be
mentioned, for it contains an exact record of the pieces that came from Prague. It was
found in Stockholm, again by Dudik, and was published in M. A. Geffroy, Notices
et extraits des manuscrits concernant l’histoire ou la littérature de la France qui sont
conservés dans les bibliothèques ou archives de Suède, Danemark et Norvége (Paris:
Impériale, 1855), 120f.
59. The full inventory of the secular treasury is relatively recent, from ca. 1750, and can be
found in Heinrich Zimmermann, “Inventare, Acten und Regesten aus der Schatzkammer des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen
des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 10 (1889): ccli–cccxxiv, no. 6253. Typically enough,
Lambeck describes a number of pieces in his large catalog of the Vienna Hofbibliothek. For an inventory of the ecclesiastical treasury, see Alphons Sitte, “Die kaiserlichgeistliche Schatzkammer in Wien,” Mittheilungen der k. k. Central-Commission für
Erforschung und Erhaltung der Kunst- und Historischen Denkmale 27 (1901): 14–18,
71–77, 138–45, 186–95. [The Raspe publication Schlosser refers to is the following:
Christoph Gottlieb von Murr, Versuch einer Beschreibung der kaiserliche-königlicheen
Schatzkammer zu Wien (Nuremberg: Raspe, 1771). — Trans.]
60. Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste,
3 vols. (Nuremberg: Sandrart, 1675–80), 2: part 2, 71–91, which, for the most part, follows Patin, Relations historiques; see Jean Louis Sponsel, Sandrarts Teutsche Akademie
(Dresden: Hoffmann, 1896), 34. There is a noteworthy list of the art lovers of the
time in Jacob Spon, Recherche des antiquités et curiosités de la Ville de Lyon, Ancienne
Colonie des Romains & Capitale de la Gaule Celtique (Lyon: Cellier, 1675), 212f.
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NOTES
61. Besides Klemm, Zur Geschichte der Sammlungen für Wissenschaft und Kunst in
Deutschland, 167ff., see also Johann Georg Theodor Graesse, “Die Kunstkammer
im Dresdner Schlosse,” Zeitschrift für Museologie und Antiquitätenkunde sowie für
verwandte Wissenschaften 2 (1879): 9–10, 17–20, 25–27. Both have since been made
redundant thanks to a long article by Viktor Hantzsch, “Beiträge zur älteren Geschichte
der kurfürstlichen Kunstkammer in Dresden,” Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte
und Altertumskunde 23 (1902): 220–96, which carefully documents the extant pieces.
A detailed description of the Dresden Kunstkammer survives in an account by Philipp
Hainhofer from 1629 and has now been published by Oscar Doering, Des Augsburger
Patriciers Philipp Hainhofer Reisen nach Innsbruck und Dresden, vol. 10 in the series
“Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte” (Vienna: Graeser, 1901), 156ff.
62. Leopold von Ledebur, Geschichte der Königlichen Kunstkammer in Berlin (Berlin:
Mittler, 1831).
63. Tobias Querfurt, Kurtze Beschreibung des fürstl. Lust-Schlosses Saltzdahlum (Braunschweig: Zilliger, 1710).
64. Oliger Jacobaeus, Muséum Regium, seu, Catalogus Rerum tam naturalium, quam
artificialium, quae in basilica bibliothecae augustissimi Daniae Norvegiaeq; monarchae
Christiani Quinti, Hafniae asservantur (Copenhagen: Schmetgen, 1696), an impressive
folio with engravings. Hans Holck, Det Kongelige Konst-Kammer paa Christiansborg
Slot samt Rosenborg Slots Inventarium (Copenhagen: 1775) is an old guide for travelers. The outstanding new guide to the Rosenborg was written by inspector Bering
Lüsberg, Rosenborg: En illustreret vejledning gennem de danske kongers kronologiske
samling (Copenhagen: F. Hendriksen, 1900).
65. Doering, Des Augsburger Patriciers Philipp Hainhofer Reisen nach Innsbruck und
Dresden, 251f.
66. The inventory of Leopold Wilhelm’s collections at the Stallburg in Vienna (1659), with
precise data on the artists, dimensions, and so on, has been published by Adolf Berger,
“Inventar der Kunstsammlung des Erzherzogs Leopold Wilhelm von Österreich.
Nach der Originalhandschrift im fürstlich schwarzenberg’schen Centralarchive,”
Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 1 (1883):
lxxix–clxxvii, esp. no. 495. The prodromos mentioned in the text has been published
by Heinrich Zimmermann, “Franz v. Stamparts und Anton v. Prenners Prodromus
zum Theatrum artis pictoriae von den Originalplatten in der k. k. Hofbibliothek zu
Wien,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 7
(1888): vii–xiv, no. 4584. Besides the famous David Teniers, Le Theatre des peintures de
David Teniers (Brussels: aux despens de l’autheur, 1660), we should not omit the work
by the same engraver, Anton Joseph von Prenner, Theatrum artis pictoriae quo tabulae
depictae quae in Caesarea Vindobondensi pinacotheca servantur, 4 parts (Vienna: n.p.,
1728–33).
67. See Michael Bernhard Valentini, Museum Museorum [ . . . ], 3 parts in 2 vols. (Frankfurt: Zunner & Jung, 1704–14), 1: 509, who cannot resist poking fun at this unfounded
belief but illustrates it in an engraving anyway.
68. There is a convenient overview of the same in the little book by H. L. Boersma,
Kunstindustrieele Literatuur: Proeve van een Historisch-Bibliographisch Overzicht van
Boek- en Plaatwerken (The Hague: Van Stockum & Zoon, 1888).
69. The exact description can be found in Oscar Doering, Des Augsburger Patriciers
Philipp Hainhofer Beziehungen zum Herzog Philipp II. von Pommern-Stettin. Correspondenzen aus den Jahren 1610–1619 im Auszuge, vol. 6 in the series “Quellenschriften
213
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214
SCHLOSSER
für Kunstgeschichte” (Vienna: Graeser, 1894); see also Julius Lessing, “Philipp
Hainhofer und der Pommersche Kunstschrank,” Jahrbuch der Königlich Preußischen
Kunstsammlungen 4 (1883): 3–18; 5 (1884): 42–56 (a new publication is forthcoming).
Hainhofer also describes other chests in detail; see Doering, Des Augsburger Patriciers
Philipp Hainhofer Reisen nach Innsbruck und Dresden, 115ff. and 290f. For a thorough
description of one such chest, produced by Jonas Ostertag in Augsburg and offered to
Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol by Hans Fugger in 1587 for 4,000 thalers, see Schönherr,
“Urkunden und Regesten,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 14 (1893): ccxii–ccxiii, no. 11205.
70. For those who are interested, a good source of information is the Katalog der im
germanischen Museum befindlichen Kunstdrechslerarbeiten des 16–18. Jahrhunderts aus
Elfenbein und Holz (Nuremberg: Verlag des germanischen Museums, 1891).
71. Marcus Heiden, Beschreibung Eines von Helffenbein gedrehten Kunststücks, in Gestalt
eines toppelten Trinckgeschirrs, an welchen vielerley künstliche Drehwerck, auch von
Bildern und andern geschnittenen Zieraten, so wohln von durchgebrochener Arbeit
zusehen Beneben desselben Geistliche Bedeutung (Coburg: Eyrich, 1640), printed in
quarto; there is an excerpt of it in Christian August Vulpius, “Ein von
Helfenbein gedrehtes Kunststück,” Curiositäten der physisch- literarisch- artistischhistorischen Vor- und Mitwelt; zur angenehmen Unterhaltung für gebildete Leser 8
(1820): 365f.
72. Klemm, Zur Geschichte der Sammlungen für Wissenschaft und Kunst in Deutschland,
242ff., has a great deal to say about the collections of naturalia. The museum of the old
Stadtbibliothek in Leipzig, which had a large collection of all manner of curiosities, is
treated at length in Gustav Wustmann, Geschichte der Leipziger Stadtbibliothek, vol. 1
(Leipzig: Hirschfeld, 1906), 271.
73. Illustrated and discussed in Jean Louis Sponsel, Kabinettstücke Meissner PorzellanManufaktur von Johann Joachim Kändler (Leipzig: Seemann, 1900), 69f. The same
constellation appears on the bronze doors of Pisa Cathedral, from Giambologna’s
workshop.
74. Illustrated in Christian Scherer, Elfenbeinplastik seit der Renaissance, vol. 8 in the
series “Monographien des Kunstgewerbes” (Leipzig: Seemann, 1902), fig. 11.
75. Lorenzo Legati, Museo Cospiano annesso a quello del famoso Vlisse Aldrouandi (Bologna: Monti, 1677). See also Giambattista Comelli, “Ferdinando Cospi e le origini del
Museo Civico di Bologna,” Atti e memorie della R. Deputazione di storia patria per
le provincie Romagna 7 (1889): 96–129; Lodovico Moscardo, Note overo memorie del
Museo del Conte Lodovico Moscardo (Verona: Rossi, 1672); and Paolo Maria Terzago,
Musaeum Septalianum Manfredi Septalae (Tortona: Typis Filiorum qd. Elisei Violae,
1664). I am familiar only with the title of the work by Gino Fogolari, “Il Museo Settala:
Contributo per la storia della coltura in Milano nel secolo XVII,” Archivio Storico
Lombardo 14 (1900): 58–126.
76. Admittedly, the Museo Cospiano [now part of the Accademia delle Scienze
dell’Istituto di Bologna] does contain, among other things, one genuine curiosity
which, though not exactly rare in the northern collections of the time, does merit
brief mention here: a chastity belt. One example of this peculiar protector of virtue — the reliability of which was seriously doubted and quipped about even then —
is now in storage at the Hofmuseum in Vienna. It was formerly at Ambras. There is
another exhibited at the Musée de Cluny in Paris.
77. Published by the Landes-Industrie-Comptoir in Weimar, 10 vols., 1811–23. According
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NOTES
to an antiquarian bookseller’s catalog that I happen to have open before me, a journal
that went under the same title appeared in Stuttgart from 1836 to 1837, presenting
itself to the reader as a “gallery of striking phenomena from the field of nature and
art” — the old dualism being as pronounced as ever here.
78. The fashion for all things Egyptian, which superseded chinoiserie, had a mystical
romanticism about it — and not just in the Egyptian hall from Wilhelm Meister’s
Apprenticeship or the setting for The Magic Flute. Such things were brought to life
not only at Senator Querini’s Villa Altichiero near Padua, which has been described
in a lavish work by Justine Rosenberg-Orsini, Alticchiero (Padua: n.p., 1787), but also
in various pieces from the Castello del Catajo at Este (now in the collection of His
Imperial and Royal Highness the Archduke Franz Ferdinand) and the Egyptianizing experiments of the brooding spiritualist sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt in
Vienna; further details can be found in the biography of this strange but talented chap
(who was a friend of Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer) by Albert Ilg, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt’s Leben und Werke (Leipzig: Freytag; Prague: Tempsky, 1885), 39f. Johann
Melchior Dinglinger’s curious Apis Altar, one of the famous old showpieces at the
Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden, may also be recalled here.
79. Müntz, Les collections des Medici au XV e siècle.
80. Umberto Rossi, “I medaglisti del rinascimento alla corte di Mantova,” Rivista italiana
di numismatica 1 (1888): 35.
81. The first port of call for Leoni’s collections is the work on this artist by Eugène Plon,
Les Maîtres Italiens au service de la Maison d’Autriche: Leone Leoni, sculpteur de
Charles-quint, et Pompeo Leoni, sculpteur de Philippe II (Paris: Plon, Nourrit, 1887),
188f. Important historic information about them can be found in Giovanni Paolo
Lomazzo, Trattato dell’arte della pittvra, scoltvra, ed architettvra (Milan: Pontio, 1585),
117 and 212, and in the supplement to the new edition of Morigi by Girolamo Borsieri,
“Il Supplimento della Nobiltà di Milano,” in Paolo Morigi, La Nobilità di Milano
(Milan: Bidelli, 1619), 67 and 68.
82. Eugène Müntz, “Raphael archéologue et historien d’art,” Gazette des beaux-arts 22
(1880): 310.
83. Charles Yriarte, “Isabella d’Este et les artistes de son temps,” Gazette des beaux-arts 13
(1895): 13–32, 189–206, 382–98; 14 (1895): 123–38; 15 (1896): 215–28, 330–46.
84. His own charming description can be found in Sabba da Castiglione, Ricordi, overo
Ammaestramenti di monsignor Sabba Castiglione, ne quali con prudenti, e Christiani
discorsi si ragiona di tutte le materie honorate, che si ricercano à un uero gentil’huomo
(Venice: Gerardo, 1559), chap. 109. See the essay by Edmond Bonnaffé, “Glossaire
archéologique du moyen âge et de la Renaissance,” Gazette des beaux-arts 29 (1884):
74–86. Besides these we should again mention the fine description of the Italian
collectors given in Burckhardt, Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte. See also Antoine Jules
Dumesnil, Histoire des plus célèbres amateurs, 4 vols. (Paris: Renouárd, 1856–60),
which contains a great deal of material.
85. The best survey of the wealth of private galleries in sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Venice is the third edition of Sansovino’s Venezia illustrata: Giustiniano
Martinioni, Venetia, citta nobilissima et singolare, descritta in XIIII libri da M. Francesco Sansovino (Venice: Curti, 1663). More recent is the publication by Cesare
Augusto Levi, Le Collezioni veneziane d’arte e d’antichità dal secolo xiv. ai nostri giorni,
2 vols. (Venice: Ongania, 1900). There is some useful information on the older private
collections of Italy in the old guides to Cremona and Genoa by Giuseppe Aglio, Le
215
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216
SCHLOSSER
pittura e le sculture della città Cremona (Cremona: Feraboli, 1794); and Carlo Giuseppe
Ratti, Descrizione delle Pitture, Scolture, e Architetture ecc. Che trovansi in alcune città,
Borghi, e Castelli Delle due Riviere dello Stato Ligure, Qui disposti per ordine Alfabetico
(Genoa: Ivone Gravier, 1780); the grand ducal Kunstkammer in Florence is described
at length in Francesco Bocchi, Bellezze della citta di Fiorenza (Florence: n.p., 1591). We
should also mention the idiosyncratic little book by the poet and collector Giambattista
Marino, La galeria (Venice: Tomasini, 1667).
86. Charles Yriarte, “Sabbioneta, la Petite Athènes,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 19 (1898): 5–20,
117–28, 201–16.
87. They found their historian as early as the eighteenth century: Giuseppe Bencivenni
Pelli, Saggio istorico della Real Galleria di Firenze, 2 vols. (Florence: Cambiagi, 1779).
88. A number of important inventories of the Chigi, Pamphili, Odescalchi, Colonna,
Barberini, and Farnese, all compiled over the course of the eighteenth century, can be
found in the Documenti inediti per servire alla storia dei musei d’Italia, vols. 2–4 (Florence, Rome: Bencini, 1878–80). Here we ought to mention the “Nota delle Librerie e
musei di Roma,” which appears as an appendix to several copies of an old guidebook
on Roman ceremonials: Girolamo Lunadoro, Relatione della Corte di Roma (Rome:
Falio, 1664).
89. See Gabriel-Jules de Cosnac, Les Richesses du Palais Mazarin (Paris: Librairie Renouard,
1884); Edmond Bonnaffé, Recherches sur les collections des Richelieu (Paris: Plon, 1883);
and for the holdings of one of the most significant French private collectors of the
sixteenth century, Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle in Besançon, see Auguste
Castan, Monographie du palais Granvelle à Besançon (Besançon: Dodivers, 1867).
90. Carl Justi, “Philipp II. als Kunstfreund,” Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 16 (1881): 305–12,
342–55. The inventory of Philip II’s estate has been printed; see “Documentos inéditos
que pueden servir para la historia del arte Español,” EI arte en España 7 (1868): 185–92
and 300–303. See also Pedro de Madrazo, Viaje artístico de tres siglos por las colecciones
de cuadros de los Reyes de España (Barcelona: Cortezo, 1884).
91. Theodor von Frimmel, Gemalte Galerien (Berlin: G. Siemens, 1896).
92. For the inventory of her artistic treasures, see Geffroy, Notices et extraits, 120–93;
and Johan Olof Granberg, La galerie de tableaux de la reine Christine de Suède ayant
appartenus auparavant à l’empereur Rodolphe II (Stockholm: Haeggström, 1897).
93. On the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Netherlandish collectors, see the recently
published book by Hanns Floerke, Studien zur niederländischen Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte: Die Formen des Kunsthandels, das Atelier und die Sammler in den Niederlanden
(Munich: Müller, 1905).
94. Some interesting samples from the 1547 inventory of his estate are mentioned in Ralph
Nicholson Wornum, Some Account of the Life and Works of Hans Holbein, Painter, of
Augsburg (London: Chapman and Hall, 1867).
95. George Vertue and Abraham van der Doort, A Catalogue and Description of King
Charles the First’s Capital Collection of Pictures, Limnings, Statues, Bronzes, Medals, and
Other Curiosities (London: Bathoe, 1757). There is a great deal about the English and
French collections of that time, their auctions, and so on, in Charles Blanc, Le Trésor de
la curiosité, 2 vols. (Paris: Renouard, 1857–58); long excerpts from Blanc’s introduction
have been published by Johann Georg Theodor Graesse, “Beiträge zu einer Geschichte
der Privat-Kunst- und Gemäldesammlungen,” Zeitschrift für Museologie und Antiquitätenkunde sowie für verwandte Wissenschaften 2 (1879): 41–45, 49–52, 57–58, 65–66,
73–74, 81–84, 89–91, 97–99, 105–7, 113–16, 121–25, 129–32, 137–39, 145–46.
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NOTES
96. Bathoe also published an old inventory of this collection, which was auctioned at
Antwerp: George Villiers and Brian Fairfax, A Catalogue of the Curious Collection
of Pictures of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; In which is included the valuable
Collection of Sir Peter Paul Rubens with the Life of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the Celebrated Poet (London: Bathoe, 1758); the inventories of the collections of
King James II and Queen Caroline were also published by the same house in the same
year. [George Vertue, A Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures, etc. Belonging to King
James the Second to Which is Added, a Catalogue of the Pictures and Drawings in the
Closet of the Late Queen Caroline, with Their Exact Measures; and Also of the Principal
Pictures in the Palace at Kensington (London: Bathoe, 1758).]
97. Edward Browne, A Brief Account of some Travels in Hungaria, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Friuli as also some Observations on the Gold, Silver, Copper, Quick-silver Mines, Baths, and Mineral Waters in
those parts: With the Figures of some Habits and Remarkable places (London: Tooke,
1673); a German translation was published as Durch Niederland, Teutschland, Hungarn, Servien, Bulgarien, Macedonien, gethane gantz sonderbare Reisen (Nuremberg:
J. Zieger, 1711).
98. Giacomo Barri, Viaggio pittoresco, in cui si notano distintamente tutte le Pitture famose
de’ più celebri Pittori, che si conseruano in qualsiuoglia Città dell’Italia (Venice: Herz,
1671).
99. Luigi Scaramuccia, Le Finezze de pennelli italiani (Pavia: Magri, 1674).
100. Jonathan Richardson senior and junior, An Account of Some of the Statues, Bas-reliefs,
Drawings and Pictures in Italy, &c. with remarks (London: Knapton, 1722). Quite
typical of the English situation is a book printed in London by James Russel, Letters
from a Young Painter abroad to his Friends in England, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London:
Russel, 1750), which foregrounds Rome. Not considered here are later Italian travel
guides such as the ambitious but unfinished work by Francesco Bartoli, Notizia delle
pitture, sculture, ed architetture che ornano le chiese, e gli altri luoghi pubblici di tutte
le più rinomate città d’Italia, 2 vols. (Venice: Savioli, 1776); and the slender work by a
Tyrolean Italian, Adamo Chiusole, Itinerario delle pittura, sculture, ed architetture più
rare di molte città d’Italia (Vicenza: Turra, 1782).
101. Charles Saunier, Les Conquêtes artistiques de la Révolution et de l’Empire (Paris: Renouard, 1902).
102. See especially Johann Georg Theodor Graesse, “Nach welchen Grundsätzen soll der
Zutritt zu den Museen gestattet werden?,” Zeitschrift für Museologie und Antiquitätenkunde sowie für verwandte Wissenschaften 7, no. 22 (1884): 173–76.
103. This is primarily true of the remarks on the subject by Wilhelm Bode, “Unsere
Museen und ihre Besucher,” Die Woche. Moderne illustrierte Zeitschrift 5 (1903):
1734–36.
217
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218
GLOSSARY OF SELECTED KEY TERMS
The terms defined below are marked with an
asterisk [*] at first appearance in the text. Unless
otherwise indicated, all terms originate in the German language.
grandes galeries (French): large galleries; exhibition galleries used for the display of paintings, as
in the grande galerie of the Louvre which featured
masterpieces such as Leonardo’s Mona Lisa
Amateur (French & Latin): amateur; in Schlosser’s
text, Amateur is synonymous with Kunstfreund
(a Kunstliebhaber in common usage), meaning a
lover of the arts. The German term includes what
amateur often means in English, namely someone
who is not serious or truly professional
“German Callicrati” (plural of the Greek name
Callicrates): Schlosser compliments the German makers of turned ivory objects in the Museo
Cospiano by comparing their work to that of one
of the architects of the Parthenon in fifth-century
Athens
Antikenkabinett: a cabinet housing a collection of
antiquities
guardaroba (Italian): wardrobe; in this context, a
chamber or place where objects that have been collected may be stored; the Guardaroba Medicea, by
extension, may refer to their collections
artificialia (Latin): objects modified or made by
human hands, as distinct from materials left in
their natural or original state
curiosa artificialia (Latin): a subset of artificialia
(see above) that might be considered exotic
curiosi (plural of Italian curioso): refers to aristocrats and gentlemen in late sixteenth- through
eighteenth-century Europe who aspired to scientific inquiry through the study of curiosities and
rarities
Existenzbild: a term used by Jacob Burckhardt to
describe sixteenth-century Venetian paintings that
seem to depict the joy of existence
Fangstuhl: an iron chair that included a spring
mechanism that when activated, clamped the
seated individual’s arms and legs down; the
Fangstuhl may have been used in a drinking game
played by guests to the Schloss Ambras
Handstein (plural Handsteine): a fragment of
ore (most often silver, sometimes iron) sculpted
into an artifact, even depicting a full landscape
or mining scene; Handsteine were valued in the
German-speaking world in the later sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries
Heiltumstuhl (plural Heiltumstühle): a structure
used for the display of relics in the medieval and
Early Modern periods
indianische: Indian; Schlosser’s use of this term
refers to either Native American or Asian objects
in the sense of the “Indies,” which may designate
the West Indies, East Indies, or even South Asian
Indian
Kabinett: a small room or furniture case used to
store objects; in the context of object-based collections, may be used interchangeably with Kammer
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GLOSSARY
Kammer: a chamber or room; in the context of
object-based collections, may be used interchangeably with Kabinett
Kunstfreund: friend of art; closely related to
Amateur and Kunstliebhaber, but also potentially a
patron or supporter of the arts
Kunstkabinett, Kunstkammer (plural Kunstkabinette, Kunstkammern): a cabinet or chamber
of art; a carefully selected collection of art objects,
artifacts, and instruments housed in a dedicated
chamber or room; in contrast to their Italian
counterparts of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, Kunstkabinette and Kunstkammern in
the German-speaking world betrayed their owners’
predilection for the eccentric and rare over the
scientific and mathematical, according to Schlosser
Kunstliebhaber: art lover; closely related to Amateur and Kunstfreund (see above)
Kunstliebhaberei: enthusiasts and lovers of art,
potentially to an excessive degree
Kunstschrank (plural Kunstschränke): a carefully
selected collection of art objects, artifacts, and
instruments housed in a small chest or cabinet that
is effectively a Kunstkammer in miniature
Kuriositätenkabinett, Kuriositäten-Kabinett,
Kuriositätenkammer: a curiosity cabinet or
chamber; a carefully selected collection of art
objects, artifacts, and other curiosities housed in a
dedicated cabinet or chamber
naturalia (Latin): natural objects such as stones,
minerals, shells, birds, animals (and their skeletons, feathers, hides, skulls, eggs, etc.), and plant
materials (nuts, coconuts, etc.), as well as collections thereof
219
Naturalienkabinett, Naturalien-Kabinett, Naturalienkammer, Naturalien-Kammer: a thoughtfully compiled collection of naturalia housed in a
cabinet or chamber
Physikalisches Kabinett: Physical Cabinet; refers
to a specific type of collection containing technical and scientific objects and measuring devices
housed in a cabinet or chamber; prominent
examples include the Physikalisches Kabinette
from Dresden or in seventeenth-century Vienna
Raritätenkabinett, Raritäten-Kabinett,
Raritätenkammer: a cabinet or chamber of rarities; a carefully chosen collection of rare objects,
either naturalia or artificialia, housed in a dedicated cabinet or chamber
Schränkchen: a small ornamental chest or cabinet,
potentially dedicated to a collection
wälsch: an umbrella term dating to the Middle
Ages that captures cultures and languages that
are decidedly not Germanic, including Romance
languages and cultures; in his discussion of Kunstund Wunderkammern, Schlosser uses wälsch to
refer to Italianate and Latinate cultures
Wenceslas: probably refers to Wenceslas IV
(1361–1419), King of Bohemia from 1363 and King
of the Romans (King of Germany) from 1370 to
1400, when he was deposed. He was a collector
and patron of manuscripts, metalwork, and built
monuments.
Wunderkammer: a cabinet or chamber of wonders; a carefully selected collection of objects,
artifacts, and instruments deemed marvelous and
extraordinary and housed in a dedicated chamber or room; in contrast to their Italian counterparts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
Wunderkammern in the German-speaking world
betrayed their owners’ predilection for the eccentric and rare over the scientific and mathematical
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220
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
References made by Schlosser but not otherwise
detailed in the endnotes appear below, organized
by the page of this volume on which they appear.
Schlosser’s wording appears in bold, followed by
full citation details.
p. 59: The old Michel de Montaigne, perhaps the
most perspicacious man of his times, and certainly of his country, had already asserted that a
child’s play is its most earnest activity: “les jeux
des enfants ne sont pas jeux, et les faut juger en
eux comme leurs plus sérieuses actions” (Games
are not games for children but are to be judged
as the most serious things they do) (Essays 1.23).
Schlosser refers here to Michel de Montaigne,
Oeuvres Complètes, ed. Albert Thibaudet and
Maurice Rat (Bruges: Gallimard, 1962), 108, bk. 1,
chap. 23. English translation from Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. and ed. M. A.
Screech (London: Penguin, 2003), bk. 1, chap. 23,
124. Schlosser originally gave the source of this
quote from Montaigne as book 1, chapter 22, erroneously. But that chapter is not entirely without
relevance to the theme of collecting either; it goes
under the heading “Le profit de l’un est dommage
de l’autre” (One man’s profit is another man’s loss).
p. 59: Schiller says as much in the most beautiful
and thoughtful of his philosophical treatises, the
letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man. The
reference is more specifically to letter 24: “Auf den
Flügeln der Einbildungskraft verläßt der Mensch
die engen Schranken der Gegenwart, in welche die
bloße Tierheit sich einschließt, um vorwärts nach
einer unbeschränkten Zukunft zu streben.” English
edition: Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, ed. and trans. E. M. Wilkinson and
L. A. Willoughby (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967),
175, letter 24, section 5: “On the wings of fancy,
man leaves the narrow confines of the present in
which mere animality stays bound, in order to
strive towards an unlimited future.”
p. 59: the motto of the Cynic philosopher refers
to omnia mea mecum porto, meaning “I carry
everything mine with me.” This motto is attributed
to Bias of Priene and appears in Cicero, Paradoxa
Stoicorum 1, 1, 8.
p. 63: λάϑε βιώσας (ancient Greek) translates as “to
live unnoticed” or “to live in obscurity”; a quote
from Epicurus meaning that the simple life without
striving is ideal. Schlosser uses the Greek in Latin
letters.
p. 69: δεύτερος πλοῦς (ancient Greek) refers to
Socrates’s method of the “second voyage” (Plato,
Phaedo 99d–d1).
p. 141: the remarkable model book by a fifteenthcentury German master refers to the so-called
Wiener Musterbuch in the collection of the
Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (Inv. Nr.
Kunstkammer, 5003).
p. 144: Heinrich Zimmermann’s fine description
of Rudolf and his court, his artists, and antiquarians refers to Heinrich Zimmermann, “Die Renaissance,” in Kunstgeschichtliche Charakterbilder
aus Österreich-Ungarn, ed. Albert Ilg (Vienna:
F. Tempsky, 1893), 210–29.
p. 168: Francesco Algarotti’s gallant attempts to
present Isaac Newton’s theories is a reference to
Francesco Algarotti, Il Newtonianismo per la dame
ovvero dialoghi sopra la luce i colori (Naples: n.p.,
1737).
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
p. 169: Edward Browne’s Reisen refers to Edward
Browne, Durch Niederland, Teutschland, Hungarn,
Servien, Bulgarien, Macedonien, gethane gantz
sonderbare Reisen (Nuremberg: J. Zieger, 1711).
p. 170: Leopardi’s famous dialogue between the
anatomist Frederik Ruysch and his mummies
refers to Giacomo Leopardi, “Dialogo di Federico
Ruysch e delle sue mummie,” in Operette morali di
Giacomo Leopardi (Milan: Ant. Fort. Stella e Figli,
1827), 163–71.
p. 172: the well-known fable by Christian
Fürchtegott Gellert refers to “Der arme Greis,” in
which the protagonist heads out to see the rhinoceros with a coin in his pocket, but instead gives it
to a beggar.
p. 181: on which even Carl Friedrich von Rumohr
wrote an essay refers to Carl Friedrich Rumohr,
“Ueber das Verhältnis der seit lange gewöhnlichen
Vorstellungen von einer prachtvollen Wineta zu
unsrer positiven Kenntniß der Kultur und Kunst
der deutschen Ostseeslaven,” Sammlung für Kunst
und Historie 1, no. 1 (1816).
p. 186: the jocular little book by Johann Hermann
Detmold refers to Johann Hermann Detmold,
Anleitung zur Kunstkennerschaft, oder Kunst in
drei Stunden ein Kenner zu warden (Hanover:
Hahnsche Hofbuchhandlung, 1834).
p. 190: Having attended a meeting of the Academy of Olympians in Vicenza, Goethe gave
sufficiently dramatic expression to this view with
the following words: “If only it were possible
to stand up in front of one’s own countrymen
like this and entertain them in person, instead
of having to confine one’s best thoughts to the
printed page of some book at which a solitary
reader, hunched up in a corner, then nibbles as
best he can.” Source for translation: Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey, trans.
221
W. H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer (London: Folio
Society, 2010), 52, entry from 22 September 1786.
p. 200: It was not for no reason that Goethe, in
his Italian Journey, confessed to having indulged
in “a daydream of being accompanied to Italy by
an educated Englishman, well versed in general
history and the history of art.” Source for translation: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey,
trans. W. H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer (London:
Folio Society, 2010), 123, entry from 7 November
1786.
p. 200: the edition of Andrea Palladio [The Four
Books of Architecture] that had been prepared in
Venice by Consul Joseph Smith (the well-known
patron of Canaletto), he let the following words
slip: “One must give the English credit for having
so long appreciated what is good and for their
munificence and remarkable skill in publicising
it.” The first reference in this passage is to Andrea
Palladio, I quattro libri dell’architettura (Venice:
Domenico da’ Franceschi, 1570), first translated
into English as Andrea Palladio, The Four Books
of Architecture, trans. Isaac Ware (London: Isaac
Ware, 1738). The quotation is from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey, trans. W. H.
Auden and Elizabeth Mayer (London: Folio Society, 2010), 54, entry from 27 September 1786.
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
222
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
THOMAS DACOSTA KAUFMANN is Frederick Marquand Professor of Art and
Archaeology at Princeton University. Author of more than 250 articles and thirteen books, and editor of five additional volumes, he has received many honors
and prizes, including honorary doctorates from universities in Brno and Dresden.
He is a fellow of the Swedish, Flemish, and Polish Academies of Science, and of the
American Academies in Rome and Berlin. In addition to his long-standing interests in central Europe, he has written on the geography and historiography of art
and questions of humanism, art, and science. For more than a decade he has been
concerned with questions of global exchange and world art history, the topic of a
forthcoming book.
JONATHAN BLOWER is a translator of German texts on the visual arts. He wrote
his doctorate on the Habsburg art historian and conservator general Max Dvořák
(1874–1921), who preceded Julius von Schlosser as head of the so-called second
Vienna School of art history. Jonathan’s previous translations for the Getty Research
Institute have included Heinrich Wölfflin’s Principles of Art History (2015) and
Harald Szeemann: Selected Writings (with Elizabeth Tucker, 2018). He is currently
translating a work on visions and revelations in the visual art of the Middle Ages.
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
223
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Photographs of items in the holdings of the Getty
Research Institute are courtesy the Research Institute.
The following sources have granted permission to
reproduce illustrations in this volume.
Introduction
Fig. 1. Photo courtesy Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Bildarchiv und Grafiksammlung.
Fig. 2. Framepool / Vienna Aerial.
Fig. 3. Jorge Royan / Alamy Stock Photo.
Fig. 4. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Bildarchiv
und Grafiksammlung. PCH 2.161 - STE C.
Fig. 5. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. GG_4501.
Fig. 6. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_3085_01.
Fig. 7. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien.
Fig. 8. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_5351.
Translation
Frontispiece: KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. GG_4501
Fig. 1. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_4073_39983.
Figs. 2, 5–8, 13, 18–22, 24–26, 28–32, 46–49, 53–56, 59,
64–65, 68–69, 72, 75–77, 79–81, 85–86, 88–92, 94–95, 97,
99. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. From Julius
von Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der
Spätrenaissance: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sammelwesens (Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1908).
Fig. 3. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK-89_01.
Fig. 4. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_73_02.
Fig. 9. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. GG_5472_1.
Fig. 10. Kunstmuseum Basel Martin P. Bühler.
Fig. 11. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alain Moatti, 1988. Acc. no.
1988.133.
Fig. 12. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.
Photo: René-Gabriel Ojéda.
Fig. 14. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_1094_6.
Fig. 15. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_27_30.
Fig. 16. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_2048_1.
Fig. 17. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_3302_14353.
Fig. 23. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_2401_36325.
Fig. 27. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_911_03.
Fig. 33. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_855_2012_01.
Fig. 34. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_838_01_mS_mitMaennchen.
Fig. 35. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_874_07.
Fig. 36. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_1067_01.
Fig. 37. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_959_01.
Fig. 38. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_776_6116.
Fig. 39. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_4450_01.
Fig. 40. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_3953_1.
Fig. 41. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_682_751_49580.
Fig. 42. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_214_7931.
Fig. 43. KHM-Museumsverband. Weltmuseum Wien.
Inv. No. 43380. VO_43380_Neu_ret.
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
224
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Fig. 44. KHM-Museumsverband. Weltmuseum Wien.
Inv. No. 43381_b. VO_43381_201610_01.
Fig. 45. KHM-Museumsverband. Weltmuseum Wien.
Inv. No. 10402. VO_10402_01.
Fig. 50. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_897_1.
Fig. 51. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_3403_8880.
Fig. 52. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_5600_9237.
Fig. 57. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_3390_69.
Fig. 58. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_883_04.
Fig. 60. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. HJRK_A_989_17628.
Fig. 61. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_8912_10878
KK_8913_11516.
Fig. 62. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_214_7931.
Fig. 63. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_3085_01.
Fig. 66. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_6872_02.
Fig. 67. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_1166_01.
Fig. 70. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. GG_1589.
Fig. 71. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. GG_1585.
Fig. 73. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. Storffer_II_Fol05.
Fig. 74. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. Storrfer_II_Fol09.
Fig. 78. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. GG_1048.
Fig. 82. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_4775_39479.
Fig. 83. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_4950_1.
Fig. 84. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_847_05.
Fig. 87. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_2419_8780.
Fig. 93. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_5702_03.
Fig. 96. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. KK_5351.
Fig. 98. KHM-Museumsverband. Kunsthistorisches
Museum Wien. GG_739_201403.
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
225
INDEX
Page numbers in italics refer to figures.
Those followed by n refer to notes, with
note numbers.
Aachen, 70, 75, 76, 184, 190
Abondio, Antonio, 144, 147
Africa, 49n168, 60, 124, 125, 147, 170
agate Grail (bowl), 69, 70, 90, 184
Alaric I, King of the Visigoths, 135
Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria, 93, 94, 96,
143, 165
Albrecht VII, Archduke of Austria, 95, 96
alchemy, 159, 169, 186
Aldrovandi, Ulisse, 175
Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, 94, 96
Algarotti, Francesco, 168, 220
“alicorns” (unicorn horns), 70, 90, 152,
161–62, 206n17
Allgau bugle (alpenhorn), 112
amateurs: and Charles I of England, 198,
199; defined, 218; and formation of
modern museums, 201; in Italy, 83, 193,
198; and John, Duke of Berry, 82; and
Leopold Wilhelm, 155; and Oliviero
Forzetta, 191; and Rudolf II, 146
Ambras collections, Innsbruck (Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol): arms and
armor, 20, 22, 23, 99, 101–2, 103, 122,
136, 137, 186; bear of “musk” (fig. 14),
88, 89, 105–6, 208n35; board games, 73;
bronzes (fig. 52), 127–31, 130; calligraphy
(figs. 64, 83), 142, 142, 167, 167; carved
statuettes (figs. 40, 62), 118, 119, 137–41,
140; catalogs of, 23, 101, 102, 209n44;
ceramics (figs. 53, 55, 56), 131–32, 131, 133;
chastity belt, 214n76; Chinese hanging
scrolls (fig. 61), 136–37, 138–39; coins
and cabinets (figs. 57, 58), 132–35, 134,
135; construction of buildings for, 19–20,
96, 99; crystal egret (fig. 23), 104–5, 105;
Fangstuhl (fig. 42), 100, 119, 121, 218; fate
of, after Ferdinand’s death, 20, 100–101;
feather works from New World (figs.
43–45), 122, 122–24; glassware (figs.
17, 18, 48), 96–98, 97, 98, 126–27, 126;
Handsteine (fig. 29), 109–10, 109; inventory of 1596, 23, 44n101, 104, 209n40;
ivory works (figs. 46, 47), 124, 125, 137;
jewelry (fig. 59), 135–36, 136; library, 99,
100, 102–4; mathematical or mechanical instruments (figs. 32–38), 112–13,
112–17; musical instruments (figs. 30,
31), 110–12, 110, 111; portrait collection,
104, 142–43; royal cups (fig. 25), 106,
107; Schlosser’s general characterization of, 28–29, 32–33, 104; as Schlosser’s
principle focus, 21–22, 57; as tourist
attraction, 99–100, 183, 209n44; views
of Schloss Ambras (figs. 19–21, 96), 98,
99, 99, 187; wedding gifts of Charles IX
(fig. 24), 20–21, 105, 106
Americas: discovery of, 170, 177; feather
works (figs. 43–45), 122, 122–24; Inca
and Aztec treasure houses, 60–61;
Montaigne’s collection of artifacts from,
93; naturalia, 106, 119; vase from Panama
(fig. 87), 170, 171; weaponry, 122, 136
anachronism, 4–5, 35–36, 50n178
Angermeyer, Christoph, 116
Anschluss (annexation of Austria into Nazi
Germany), 7, 35, 36, 41n47, 50n173
Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi), 191
Antikenkabinette, x, 181–82, 218
archaeology, 10–11, 68, 199, 205n1
Arcimboldo, Giuseppe: Fire (fig. 71), 153,
153; Schlosser as first to illustrate works
by, 29; and science, 33; Summer (fig. 70),
152, 153; and Valentini’s museology, 184
Armamentarium Heroicum Ambrasianum
(Schrenck von Nozing, fig. 22), 44n103,
101–2, 103
arms and armor: Ambras collection of, 20,
22, 23, 99, 101–2, 103, 122, 136, 137, 186;
Duke of Berry’s few pieces of, 89; in
medieval churches, 73–74; Schlosser’s
work on imperial collections of, 12; unicorn sword of Charles the Bold, 90
artificialia, 32, 64, 168, 176, 179, 218
Arundel, Thomas Howard, Earl of, 198–99,
200
astrology, 24, 29, 113, 117, 159, 169, 210n48
astronomy, 24–25, 33, 45n108, 112–13, 159,
160–61, 162
Augsburg: as an artistic center, 96, 144; cabinetmaking, 135, 135, 162, 214n69; Fugger
family, 177, 214n69; Hainhofer from, 155,
162; mechanical instrument making, 113,
116, 117, 176; musical instrument making,
111; ostrich-egg goblet, 127, 128; reliquary
books, 76; seashell utensils, 109
Augustus, Elector of Saxony, 165
Augustus II (the Strong), King of Poland,
172
Austria, Republic of, 7, 15, 35
Austria-Hungary, 5–8, 9, 15
automata: Diana on centaur (fig. 67), 148,
149; galleon with mechanical fanfare
(fig. 35), 112–13, 115; Job riding a turtle
(fig. 84), 168, 168; mechanical bell tower
(fig. 34), 112–13, 114; mechanical fanfare
(fig. 33), 112–13, 113; musical automaton
(fig. 37), 113, 117; perpetuum mobile,
159, 172
Bacon, Francis, 161
Bandinelli, Baccio, 93
Baphometes (fig. 94), 181–82, 182
Barbari, Jacopo de, 93
Bargello Museum, Florence, 172, 186
Barnum, P. T., 29, 32, 147
baroque style, 1, 10, 100, 160, 165, 194
Barri, Giacomo, 199, 217n98
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, 101
bear of “musk” (fig. 14), 88, 89, 105–6,
208n35
Beck, Leonhard, 141
Bed of Polykleitos, 146, 190
Belvedere (palace), Vienna, 20, 101
Benavides, Marco Mantova, 142
Benndorf, Otto, 11
Benoist, Antoine, 207n22
Berger, Julius Victor, Gold Room ceiling,
Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum, 21, 21
Berlin, ix, 21, 93, 150, 162, 200, 201, 202
Berry, John, Duke of: biographical summary, 80–81; coins and medals owned
by, 83–86, 84; curiosities owned by,
87–89; enamel portrait of, 93; Holbein’s
drawing after funerary statue of (fig.
10), 80, 81; importance of, as a patron
and collector, 28, 79–80, 82, 89–90;
manuscripts commissioned by, 84–86,
85; Rudolf II compared to, 82, 144
Bertoldo di Giovanni, 67, 190
Beutel, Tobias, Cedretum (fig. 68), 149, 150
bezoar stones (fig. 85), 71, 169, 169, 179
bibliophiles, 79–80, 82–83, 86, 100, 102–4
board games, 73, 87
Bocskay, Georg, 142
Bologna, 6, 69, 74, 168, 175–76, 199,
206nn16–17, 214n76
Borghini, Raffaello, 174
Bosch, Hieronymus, 93
Bouts, Dirk, 93
Brahe, Tycho de, 113
Braunschweig, ix, 70, 150–51, 210n50
British Museum, London, 87, 198, 200
bronzes, 67, 93, 127–31, 130, 135, 146, 176,
191, 193
Browne, Edward, 169–70, 170, 199, 217n97,
221
Bruckner, Anton, 9
Brunelleschi, Filippo, 190
Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 198,
217n96
Buontempo, Giovanni, 98
Burckhardt, Jacob, 2, 195, 205n1, 215n84, 218
Burg Kreuzenstein, Austria, 164, 165
Burgos Cathedral, Spain, 73, 73
Burgundian clock (fig. 13), 87, 87, 208n34
Burgundian enamel goblets (fig. 25), 106,
107
Burgundy, collections of the Dukes of, 87,
90–92, 91, 92
Buschmann, David, 116
Byzantine art, 65–66, 70, 72, 84, 152, 195
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
226
INDEX
cabinet of Rudolf II (fig. 51), 127, 129,
164–65
cabinet with figurine of Death (fig. 39),
118, 118
Caesar, Julius, 64, 198
calligraphy, 142, 142, 167, 167, 186
Camden, William, 199
Canaletto, 200, 221
Carrara, Francesco Novello da, 83
Cassiodorus, 63
Castello del Catajo, Este, 215n78
Castiglione, Sabba da, 192, 215n84
Catherine II (the Great), Empress of Russia,
194
Cedretum (Beutel, fig. 68), 149, 150
Cellini, Benvenuto, saliera (salt cellar,
fig. 24), 20–21, 101, 105, 106
ceramics: Early American vase (fig. 87),
170, 171; faience, 132, 147; in Halle private
collection, 155; majolica, 70, 132, 133;
porcelain, 89, 131, 131, 154, 170, 172, 176,
183, 186; terra sigillata, 132, 183
Ceruti, Benedetto, Museum Calceolarianum
(fig. 89), 174–75, 174
Chantilly, Château de, 80, 85
Charlemagne, Emperor, 70, 190
Charlemont, Hugo, 68
Charles, Margrave of Burgau, 100
Charles I, King of England, 93, 198–99
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 94, 96,
122
Charles V, King of France, 28, 79–80, 89,
92, 207n25
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, 100
Charles VI, King of France, 81, 83, 87
Charles IX, King of France, 20–21, 95, 105,
106
Charles-Ferdinand University (now Charles
University), Prague, 14
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 87,
90, 95
chastity belts, 184, 214n76
Chinese hanging scrolls (fig. 61), 136–37,
138–39
Chopin, Frédéric, 10
Christina, Queen of Sweden, 194, 212n58
Cicogna, Pasquale, Doge, 118, 119
Cicognara, Leopoldo, 201
Cid, El, 73, 73
Clarac, Charles Othon Frédéric Jean
Baptiste, 201
Clement V, Pope, 71
Clement VII, Pope, 206n17
Clement XIV, Pope, 200
clocks, 87, 87, 112, 113, 116, 149, 172, 208n34
coconut-shell vessel (fig. 66), 144, 145
coin cabinets, 100, 134, 135, 179, 184, 186
coins, 12, 60, 66, 83, 93, 132–35, 176, 192
Colin, Alexander, 18–19, 96
Collalto, Eduard von, Prince, 208n34
Cologne, 69
Columbus, Christopher, 72
Comanini, Gregorio, 153
Congress of Vienna (1814–15), 7, 101
connoisseurship, 11–12, 184–86
Constable, John, 198
Constantine I, Emperor of Rome, 65–66,
84–85, 84
Constantinople, 65–66, 67
Copenhagen, 74, 127, 147, 154–55, 165,
206n17, 213n64
Copernicus, Nicolaus, 161
coral works (fig. 49), 127, 127
Correggio, Antonio da, 144
Cosimo I, Grand-Duke of Tuscany, 142
Cospi, Ferdinando, 175–76, 214n76
Cranach, Lucas, the Elder, viii, xin2, 147,
149
Cranach, Lucas, the Younger, xin2, 143
credenza with shark teeth (fig. 3), 70, 71,
106
Croce, Benedetto, 4, 10, 39n27
crystal, 69, 70, 77, 90, 91, 104–5, 105, 176,
206n13
cups and goblets: Burgundian enamel
goblets (fig. 25), 106, 107; court goblet
of Philip the Good (fig. 15), 87, 90, 91;
goblet of Ferdinand of Tyrol (fig. 17), 97,
97; golden cup with Archangel Michael
(fig. 24), 105, 106; “griffins’ claw” cups
(fig. 26), 70, 106, 107; ostrich-egg goblet
(fig. 50), 127, 128
curiosa artificialia, 64, 179, 218
curiosi, 55, 159–62, 180, 218
Custos, Dominicus, 102
Dante Alighieri, 67, 176
Darwin, Charles, 197
Death figures, 116, 118, 118
Della Robbia family, 195
Denis, Ferdinand, 70
De Sanctis, Francesco, 177
Detmold, Johann Hermann, 186, 221
Dijon, 80, 90
Dinglinger, Johann Melchior, 215n78
Dolfuss, Engelbert, 35
Donatello, 191
Doort, Abraham van der, 198, 216n95
double mazer in olive wood (fig. 4), 70, 71
Dresden collections (Electors of Saxony):
Filarete statue, 191; formation of, into
modern museums, 201, 203; Grünes
Gewölbe, 1, 110, 150, 203, 215n78; Handsteine, 110; Kurfürstliche Apotheke, 169;
Metropolitan Museum exhibition on,
36n2; Müller’s critique of, 147; overview
of collections, 150; Residenzschloss
Kunstkammer, 149, 150, 212n61;
Schlosser’s discussion of, as brief, ix, 21,
31; telescopes used by Kepler, 33; turned
works by Augustus, 165; validity of
Schlosser’s source (Müller) on, viii, xin2
Dudik, Beda, 146, 212n58
Dürer, Albrecht, 21, 92, 102–4, 144, 149, 160,
171–72, 208n39
Dutch collecting, 194–96
Dvořák, Max, 2–3, 5, 10, 14, 41n57
Dyck, Anthony van, 198
East Asian objects, 131–32, 131, 136–37,
138–39, 170
Eckhel, Joseph Hilarius, 100
egret, crystal (fig. 23), 104–5, 105
Egypt, 34, 64, 147, 151, 170, 176, 206n13,
215n78
Eiberger, Sophie Maria, 6
Einckel, Caspar Friedrich, Museographia
(fig. 92), 149, 154, 177–80, 178, 183, 184
Elgin, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of, 198
Elisabeth of Austria, 20, 95, 105
Embriachi, Baldassare degli, 86, 124
emerald ointment vessel (fig. 16), 90, 92
enameled works, 86–89, 93, 104–6, 107,
131, 136
English collecting, 30, 189, 196–200,
216nn94–95, 217n96
Enlightenment, 8, 30–31, 33
Ensisheim aerolite, 72
Ephesus (archaeological site), 11
Epicurus, ix, 220
ethnographic objects, 62, 112, 122, 136–37,
144, 151, 155, 170, 176
Eugene of Savoy, Prince, 20
Existenzbild, 196, 218
Eyck, Jan van, 93
Falguières, Patricia, 4, 49n162
Fangstuhl (fig. 42), 100, 119, 120, 121, 218
Farnese collections, 64, 216n88
feather works (figs. 43–45), 122, 122–24
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, 18, 94,
96, 122
Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria (Ferdinand of Tyrol): administration of his
collections, 101; anonymous portrait
of (Schlosser’s frontispiece), 16–19, 17,
52; as architect or builder, 19–20, 96,
99; and Cellini’s salt cellar, 20–21, 105;
chest from Augsburg offered to, 214n69;
and the construction Kunst- und
Wunderkammern, 22–23; genealogy and
family connections, 93–96; glassworks
established by, 96–98; involvement in
arts and literature, 98, 209n43; John,
Duke of Berry, compared to, 82; miniature portrait of, as widower (fig. 9), 78;
wax portrait of (fig. 63), 18, 19, 43n82,
137, 141. See also Ambras collections,
Innsbruck
Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, 28,
95, 149
Ferdinandeum (Tiroler Landesmuseum),
Innsbruck, 74
Filarete, 83, 191, 207n30
Fiorillo, Johann Dominik, 201
Florence: Baptistery, 67; Bargello, 172, 186;
Della Robbia workshop, 195; grand
ducal Kunstkammer, 216n85; and Italian
influence on modern collecting, 189,
190; Medici collections, 190, 191, 192–93,
200, 206n17; and Savonarola, 72; wax
sculptures, 74
Fontana, Giovanni Battista, 102
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
INDEX
forgeries or counterfeits, 84–86, 126,
181–82, 191
Forzetta, Oliviero, 191, 192
fossils, 71, 119, 169, 172, 179, 183
Foucquet, Jean, 93
Francavilla, Pietro, 209n43
Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand-Duke of
Tuscany, 94, 96
Francis I, Emperor of Austria (formerly
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor), 6, 101
Francis I, King of France, 20, 101, 193
Francken, Frans, the Younger, Kuriositätenkabinett (fig. 78), 159, 160
Franzensburg Castle, Laxenburg, 203
Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria,
210n47, 215n78
Franz Josef I, Emperor of Austria, 5, 15
Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia, 74
Frederick III, King of Denmark, 74
Frederick V, King of Denmark, 165
French collecting. See Berry, John, Duke of;
Paris; and specific French rulers
French Revolution, 65, 196–97, 201
Freud, Sigmund, 5, 24
Friedländer, Max, 2
Friedrich III, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein,
151
Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor, 72, 74,
94, 106, 107, 137
Fronmüller, Hans and Georg, 168
Galilei, Galileo, 30, 33, 160, 177
galleon with mechanical fanfare (fig. 35),
112–13, 115
Gandtner, Christoph, 133
Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott, 172, 221
Gemma Augustea (cameo), 69, 83
gemstones, 69, 83, 86, 90, 105–6, 135,
176, 192
Genoa, 170, 177, 193, 207n22, 215n85
“German Callicrati,” 176, 218
German Reich, 7–8, 35–36, 50n173
German Renaissance, 90–93, 102, 135, 162
Ghent Altarpiece, 200
Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 68, 146, 190, 193
Giambologna, 131, 146, 214n73
“giant’s bones” (fig. 5a), 62, 71–72, 72, 89, 143
Giotto, 84, 195, 201
Giovio, Paolo, 142, 192
glass: chamber pot, 89; devil in glass (fig.
77), 155, 159; goblet of Ferdinand of Tyrol
(fig. 17), 97, 97; Hall in Tyrol glassworks
(fig. 18), 96–98, 98; Luther’s glass, 186;
Rosenborg collection of, 154; Venetian
comedy figures (fig. 48), 126–27, 126. See
also crystal
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: and Cellini’s
salt cellar, 101; and Egyptian craze,
215n78; and Englishmen, 197, 200,
221; and Ensisheim aerolite, 72; and
evolution, 187, 190; and literature of the
Kunstkammern, 180–82; and museums,
201, 204; and Wallenstein’s horoscope,
113
Golden Horse of Altötting, 87
goldsmithery, 20–21, 69, 84, 86–87, 105–6,
135
Gombrich, Ernst, 3, 9–10, 25–26, 34, 39n27,
42n69
Gonzaga, Ludovico (bishop), 191
Gonzaga Colonna, Vespasiano, 193
Gothic style, 65, 77, 90, 106, 193
Gottorp Kunstkammer, 21, 151–53, 151
Graesse, Johann Georg Theodor, 203
Graevius, Joannes Georgius, 160
grandes galeries, 193, 218
Granvelle, Antoine Perrenot de, Cardinal,
216n89
Grapheus, Abraham, 60
Graz, 74, 96, 143, 211n55
Greece, ancient: British acquisition of
Greek antiquities, 198–99; Homeric
heroes, 45nn112–13, 61; medieval
remnants of Hellenic culture, 65–66;
Renaissance revival of Greek ideals,
28; and Roman antiquarianism, 63–65;
temple treasuries, 27, 61–63, 70; vessels
in Duke of Berry’s collection, 83
Gregory XIII, Pope, 137
“griffins’ claws” (fig. 26), 70, 106, 107, 169
Gronovius, Joannes Fredericus, 160
Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden, 1, 110, 150, 203,
215n78
guardaroba, 80, 218
Guelph Treasure (Welfenschatz), 73
Habsburg, House of (House of Austria):
alchemical medal of 1677, 186; colors and
symbols of, 18, 19; and the construction
Kunst- und Wunderkammern, 23–24;
crown jewels, 70, 90; Margaret of Austria as uniting Burgundy and, 92; musical instrument collections, 9–10, 210n47;
ownership of the imperial collections,
14–16, 20; patronage of the arts, 21, 31;
portrait collection of members of, 142;
rule of Austria-Hungary, 5–8; Schlosser’s
identification with, 8, 15; statuettes of
saints of, 141; weaponry collection, 102.
See also specific rulers
Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli, 64, 193
Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, 65–66
Hainhofer, Philipp, 153, 155, 162–64, 209n44,
213n61, 213n69
Hall in Tyrol, 96–98, 98
Hamilton, James, 199
Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph Freiherr von, 181
Handel, George Friderich, 197
Handsteine (fig. 29), 109–10, 109, 218
Harun al-Rashid, Caliph, 70
Hasenauer, Karl Freiherr von, 21
Haydn, Joseph, 9, 197
Heidegger, Martin, 35, 50n177
Heiden, Marcus, 165, 166, 214n71
Heiltumstühle, 75, 76, 192, 218
Heintz, Joseph, the Elder, 144
Henry VIII, King of England, 198, 216n94
Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, 70
227
Heraclius, Emperor of the East, 84
Heraeus, Carl Gustav, 100
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, 74, 165, 194,
202
Herodotus, 25, 60, 62
Herondas, 62
Hitler, Adolf, 35, 36, 49n173, 50n176
Hoare, Richard Colt, 199
Hoefnagel, Joris, Innsbruck with View of
Ambras (fig. 96), 22, 43n86, 99, 187
Hofbibliothek, Vienna, 74, 100, 102, 135, 155,
169–70, 170, 209n40, 212n59
Hofburg (palace), Vienna, 6
Hoffmann, E. T. A., 168
Hofmann, Lorenz, 154–55
Hofmuseum, Vienna. See Kunsthistorisches
Hofmuseum, Vienna
Hohenzollern Museum, 74
Holbein, Hans, the Younger: Jean de
France, Herzog von Berry (fig. 10), 80, 81;
and Rudolf II’s painting collection, 146
Holy Roman Empire, 6, 7, 35, 144
Hormayr, Josef von, 100–101, 212n58
horoscope (Wallenstein, fig. 38), 113, 117,
210n48
Hradčany (castle), Prague, 144–49, 159, 162.
See also Rudolf II’s collections, Prague
Hutský, Matthias, 209n43
Ilg, Albert, 20, 209n40, 210n44, 215n78
Indau, Johann, 162
indianische, 93, 106, 136, 147, 210n53, 218
Innsbruck. See Ambras collections,
Innsbruck
Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 12
Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, 192
Italian collecting: and heathen images,
68–69; influence of, on modern collecting, 30–31, 142, 189–93; and Italy’s
classical heritage, 64–65, 67, 176–77,
189–91; vs. northern collections, 30, 32,
143, 172–75, 184, 192; and science, 30–31,
174–77, 190; studiolo, 32, 192, 198. See also
specific Italian cities and collectors
Italian Renaissance, 64, 72, 83, 86, 190–93,
195–96, 199, 205n1
Italy, Kingdom of, 6–7
ivory: Ambras collection of (figs. 46, 47),
124, 125, 137; Italians’ distaste for, 172;
narwhal tusks, 70, 89, 90, 152, 206n17;
oliphant reliquary (fig. 1), 58, 70;
saddles, 12, 22; turned works (fig. 82), 89,
165–67, 166, 176, 218
Jabach, Eberhard, 193
Jacobaeus, Oliger, 154, 213n64
James II, King of England, 217n96
Jamnitzer, Wenzel, 106–9, 144, 162
Jean de France. See Berry, John, Duke of
jester’s cap (fig. 27), 106, 108
jewelry, 60, 135–36, 136. See also gemstones
John II (the Good), King of France, 79, 80
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228
INDEX
John VIII Palaeologus, Emperor of the
East, 86
John XXII, Pope, 71, 89
Josephus Flavius, 66, 205n9
Junius, Franciscus, the Younger, 198–99
Justi, Carl, 193, 216n90
Kabinette, x, 127, 135, 147, 202, 218
Kaiserliche Schatzkammer (imperial
treasury), Vienna: Ambras collection
merged with, 101; inventories of, 212n59;
magica as a main attraction in, 155;
Schlosser’s general characterization of,
149; specific treasures, 69, 70, 90, 127,
184; visitors’ admission fee, 183
Kammern, x, 149, 219
Kant, Immanuel, 10, 197
Karl II, Archduke of Styria, 95, 96, 143
Karlštejn (castle), Prague, 111, 201
Kassel, ix, 31, 151, 186
Kepler, Johannes, 29–30, 33, 159–60, 210n48
Keyssler (Keyßler), Johann Georg, 183,
209n44
Kircher, Athanasius, 172, 173
Kleinkram, 28
Klemm, Gustav, 45n105, 154, 169, 205n1,
214n72
Knights Templar, 181
Köhler, Johann David, 184, 186
Kokoschka, Oskar, 10
Kölner Metropolitanmuseum (now the
Kolumba), Cologne, 69
Kris, Ernst, 3, 24, 35
Kunst, definitions of, x, 2, 26, 30
Kunstfreund, 28, 64, 219
Kunstgewerbe, 1, 113
Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, 162
Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum (now
Kunsthistorisches Museum), Vienna:
Ambras collections moved to, 20, 57,
100–101, 104; bear with musket, 208n35;
bronze casts of statues, 191; Burgundian
treasures, 90; chastity belt, 214n76;
creation and opening of, 10, 12, 14–15;
credenza, 70; and definition of Kunst
(art), 26; enamel works, 93; exterior
views of, 6, 11; forged antiquities, 181;
Gemma Augustea, 69, 83; Gold Room,
21, 21; and Hitler, 36; interior view of,
13; Kunstkammer rooms, 23, 44n101;
Lhotsky’s history of, 31; magica, 155;
mechanical instruments, 113; musical
instruments, 9–10, 12, 110–11; Neuberger
works, 186; Paulus van Vianen’s ewer,
149; Schlosser’s museum work, 9–10,
12–16, 19, 20
Kunstkabinette, 99, 219
Kunstkammern: defined, 219; Einckel’s
ideal Kunstkammer, 177–80; as encyclopedic, 32, 160, 162; etymology of
Kunst- und Wunderkammern, 22–24;
and formation of modern museums, 29,
200–201, 202; and German terminology for collections, ix–x; Handsteine
as representative of, 109; heyday of,
and best-known collections, 93; and
interdisciplinarity of Schlosser’s work, 2;
Kunsthistorisches Museum’s Kunstkammer galleries, 23, 44n101; Kunstschränke
as, 164; as late Renaissance phenomena,
1, 27–28; literature of, 180–87; national
or ethnic differences in, 29–30, 32, 82,
143, 172–75; picture galleries’ detachment
from, 155, 193; private nature of, 79; and
Quiccheberg’s methodology, 144; revival
of interest in, 1, 31, 36n2, 46n141; and
science, 30–34, 159, 172, 187; and technical virtuosity, 167; Wunderkammern as
distinct from, 26. See also specific owners
or locations of Kunstkammern
Kunstliebhaber, 96, 219
Kunstliebhaberei, 80, 219
Kunstliteratur, ein Handbuch zur Quellenkunde der neueren Kunstgeschichte, Die
(Schlosser), 1, 12, 36, 37n5, 50n180
Kunstschloss (fig. 41), 119, 120
Kunstschränke, 162–65, 163, 213n69, 219
Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, Die (Schlosser): dating of,
“in the Mars year,” 24–25, 45n108, 57;
expanded edition (1978), ix, 31; foreignlanguage citations in, 9, 25; as a history
of collecting, 1, 21–22, 26–31, 59, 189, 203;
lasting impact of, 1–2, 32, 34; origins of,
in Schlosser’s work and ideas, 16–24;
publication of (1908), ix, 1; reception of,
4–5, 31, 34–36, 49n162; table of contents,
55–56; translations of, 2, 34
Kuriositätenkabinette or Kuriositätenkammern, x, 160, 175, 180–83, 193, 219
Kurz, Otto, 2, 3, 4, 26, 42n69
Lambeck, Peter, 100, 184, 210n51, 212n59
lapidaries, 71, 169
lapis lazuli, 89
lathe of Maximilian I (fig. 81), 164, 165
Latin language, 8–9
Leber, Max von, 87, 208n34
Legati, Lorenzo, Museo Cospiano (fig. 90),
175–76, 175
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 160
Leipzig, ix, 169, 183, 214n72
Leitgeb, Konrad, 132
Leo X, Pope, 192, 193
Leonardo da Vinci, 160, 177, 190, 218
Leoni, Leone, 146, 191, 215n81
Leopardi, Giacomo, 170, 221
Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, 100,
161–62, 169–70, 186
Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, 74
Leopold V, Archduke of Tyrol, 95, 96, 100
Leopold Wilhelm, Archduke of Austria:
and African horns, 210n50; collections
at Stallburg, 43n85, 155, 194, 213n66; and
English collections, 198; Ferdinand II’s
family relation to, 95, 96; and Hofmuseum’s Gold Room, 21; and other
great collectors, 29, 93, 146; Teniers’s
portrayal of, in his Brussels gallery
(fig. 98), 194, 195
Leyden, Lucas van, 149
Lhotsky, Alphons, 31
Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph, 197
Liège, 87, 90
Limbourg Brothers, The Meeting of the
Magi (fig. 12), 84–85, 85, 86
List, Camillo, 57
Livy, 189
Löffler, Hans Christoph, 96
London, 75, 198–99, 200, 203, 217n100
Longhi, Pietro, 172
Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, 190
Louis I (the Great), King of Hungary, 73
Louis XIV, King of France, 64
Louis d’Anjou, 79–80, 207n25
Louvre Museum, Paris, 65, 69, 105, 193,
206n13, 218
Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, 201
Luther, Martin, 186
Lysippos, 190
Mabillon, Jean, 160
Madrid, 102, 193, 210n50
Magi (biblical), 70, 85, 85
magica (fig. 77), 135, 155, 159, 159
Mahler, Gustav, 5, 9
majolica, 70, 132, 133
Mander, Karel van, III, 127
mandrake roots, 135, 147, 155, 159, 159
Mantegna, Andrea, 190, 198
Mantua, 74–75, 189, 191, 192, 193, 198,
206n11, 206n17
manuscripts, 84–86, 85, 89, 93, 100, 102–4,
120
Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, 9,
190, 191
Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, 82, 83, 90, 92–93, 95, 96, 193,
208n37
Maria, Duchess of Burgundy, 90, 92, 95
Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, 100
Mariazell, 73
Marie Louise, Empress, 74
mathematical instruments (fig. 32), 112, 112
Maulbertsch, Franz Anton, 10
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor: and
Burgundian collections, 90; daughter
Margaret, 92; Ferdinand II’s family relation to, 94, 96; and Hofmuseum’s Gold
Room, 21; lathe of (fig. 81), 164, 165;
manuscript treasures of, 102, 120
Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, 18,
95, 96, 194
Mazarin, Jules, Cardinal, 193
Mechelen, 90, 92–93, 96, 193
medals: in Ambras collection, 136, 142; of
Constantine (fig. 11), 84–85, 84; in Duke
of Berry’s collection, 83–86; Habsburg
alchemical medal of 1677, 186; Order of
the Golden Fleece, 19; Schlosser’s curatorial experience with, 12; of Schweicker, 167; in Settala’s collection, 176;
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
INDEX
silver Jubiläums-Hofmedaille awarded to
Schlosser, 15; urge to collect, 60
Medici, Claudia de’, 95, 96, 100, 132
Medici collections, 190, 191, 192–93, 200,
206n17
Mehun-sur-Yèvre, Château de, 82
Meidling, Anton, 111
Meissen porcelain, 172
Meit, Conrat, 93, 101
Memling, Hans, 93
Merian, Matthaeus, Topographia Germaniae (fig. 19), 98, 99
Messerschmidt, Franz Xaver, 215n78
Mexico, 119, 122, 176
Michelangelo Buonarroti, 67, 190
Michiel, Marcantonio, 105, 174, 193
Middle Ages: church treasuries, 27, 62,
67–77, 184; continuity of classical traditions in, 65–66, 83, 189–90; Duke of
Berry’s straddling of two eras, 28, 82,
86; and global exploration, 170, 177;
Handsteine as representative of, 109–10;
and heathen images, 68–69, 206n11;
lapidaries, 71, 169; northern collections, 93; princely treasuries, 79–80,
90, 149, 155–59; reliquary books, 63, 76;
Romantic interest in, 181, 203; superstitions or myths of, vs. modern science,
27, 29, 159–62
Milan, 153, 176
miniatures, 78, 89, 93, 120, 136, 142, 168,
211n54
Miseroni, Ottavio, 144
Montaigne, Michel de, 25, 59, 93, 99, 183,
220
Monteverdi, Claudio, 98
Montezuma I, Emperor of Mexico, 122, 136
Moscardo, Lodovico, Count, 176
Müller, Johann Joachim, viii, 147
Munich collections (Dukes of Bavaria):
formation of, into modern museums,
201; inventory of 1598, 29, 45n120, 143;
and other great Kunstkammern, 93, 147;
picture gallery, 155; and Quiccheberg’s
methodology, 143; Schlosser’s discussion
of, as brief, ix, 21; turned works, 165
Murano glassware, 96–97, 126–27, 126
Musée de Cluny, Paris, 86, 214n76
Musée Napoléon, Paris (fig. 99), 201–2, 202
Museo Cospiano, Bologna (fig. 90), 175–76,
175, 214n76, 218
Museographia (Einckel, fig. 92), 149, 154,
177–80, 178, 183, 184
Museo Kircheriano, Rome (fig. 88), 172, 173
Museo Settala, Milan (fig. 91), 176, 177
Museum Calceolarianum (Ceruti, fig. 89),
174–75, 174
Museum Museorum (Valenti, figs. 79, 95),
149, 151, 154, 161, 183–84, 185, 213n67
museums, development of: Ambras as a
musaeum, 19–20, 43n86; and ancient
treasure houses, 60–61; English
contributions to, 30, 196–200; first wax
museum, 207n22; future of the modern
museum, 203–4; and Greek temple
treasuries, 27, 61–62; and medieval
church treasuries, 67–70, 75; national
differences in collecting, 29–30, 32,
172–75; The Origins of Museums (Oxford
symposium), 32; and public access to
art, 61–66, 75, 189–90, 200, 202–3; Quiccheberg’s methodology, 23, 143–44; and
Schatzkammer in Vienna, 149; Schlosser
as pioneer of museology, 2; state museums’ emergence, 200–202; Valentini’s
history of, 183–84
Museum Wormianum (Worm, fig. 72),
154, 155
musical automaton (fig. 37), 113, 117
musical instruments: Ambras collection of
(figs. 30, 31), 110–12, 110, 111; in ancient
collections, 64; Franz Ferdinand’s collection of, 210n47; Karl II’s collection
of, 143; Kassel collection of, 186; as
Kunstschränke items, 162; in Museo
Kircheriano, 172; Schlosser’s curatorial
experience with, 9–10, 12
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French,
65–66, 101, 197, 201
Napoleonic Wars, 7, 20, 100–101
narwhal tusks, 70, 89, 90, 152, 206n17
Native American objects. See Americas;
indianische
naturalia: Ambras collection of, 101, 104,
143; from the Americas, 106, 119; in
ancient Greek temple treasuries, 62;
animals representing the four elements,
152; and antiquarian research, 175–76;
apothecaries’ collections of, 169, 172,
214n72; vs. artificialia, 32, 168, 176;
defined, 219; in an ideal Kunstkammer,
179–80; “natural wonders,” 28, 70–72, 89,
143, 159, 169–72; Rudolf II’s collection of,
147; and scientific endeavors, 33
Naturalienkabinette or Naturalienkammern: defined, 219; of Duke of Berry,
89; and German terminology for collections, x; at Gottorp, 152; in Italy, 30,
174–76, 184, 192; literature on, 183–84,
187; and Quiccheberg’s methodology,
144; and separation of art and science,
30, 170
Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum, Vienna,
104, 122, 137
Nazism, 7, 35–36, 41n47, 50n173, 50nn176–77
Neiner, Johann Valentin, 155
Nelson, Horatio, Viscount, 75
Neuberger, Daniel and Anna Felicitas, 186
Neue Burg, Vienna, 5, 36
Newton, Isaac, 168, 197, 220
New World. See Americas
Noah’s Ark, 147, 184
Nuremberg: as an artistic center, 96, 144;
and Dürer, 104; Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 203; Imhof Kunstkammer, 93,
208n39; Luther’s glass, 186; Praun print
collection, 93, 208n38; Ratsbücherei
229
(now Stadtbibliothek), 161; reliquary
books, 76; Schedel’s Nuremberg
Chronicle, 90; trinkets and gimmicks,
137, 165; turned works, 165
Olearius, Adam, Gottorffische Kunstkammer (fig. 69), 151–53, 151
oliphant reliquary (fig. 1), 58, 70
Orient: vs. ancient Greece, 62; Baphometes
(idols), 181; Chinese hanging scrolls (fig.
61), 136–37, 138–39; and church treasuries, 69–70; and Margaret of Austria’s
collection, 93; Paludanus’s travels in, 151;
porcelain, 89, 131, 131, 170; Spon’s travels
in, 199; Thousand and One Nights, 61;
Thracian “Orientals,” 34, 66; wax sculptures of emissaries from, 207n22
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 11
Österreichisches Archäeologisches Institut,
11
ostrich eggs, 62, 70, 77, 89, 106, 127, 128, 186
Otto, Duke of Carinthia, 73
Ovid, 67, 189
Pächt, Otto, 3, 35
Padua, 83, 131, 137, 142, 189, 191, 200, 215n78
Paganelli, Domenico, 74
painting collections: Boisserée collection,
201; detachment of, from Kunstkammern, 155, 193; at Dresden, 149, 200–201;
imperial collections in Vienna, 20,
100, 194; in Italy, 142, 176; of Margaret
of Austria, 93; of Rudolf II in Prague,
29, 144–46, 147, 153. See also portrait
collections
Palissy, Bernard, 109, 160
Palladio, Andrea, 194, 200, 221
Paludanus, Bernard, 151
Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 170; coin
cabinet, 135; and John, Duke of Berry,
80, 84, 86; Louvre, 65, 69, 105, 193,
206n13, 218; Musée de Cluny, 86, 214n76;
Musée Napoléon (fig. 99), 201–2, 202;
and Napoleon, 65, 101, 201; Salon, 192
Patin, Charles, 135, 183, 209n44
Pausanias, 63
Pavia, 86, 190
Peter I (the Great), Emperor of Russia, 74,
165, 186, 194
Petrarch, Francesco, 83
Petronius Arbiter, 64
Philip II, King of Spain, 29, 93, 94, 96, 146,
193, 216n90
Philip IV, King of Spain, 94, 96
Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 79–80,
81
Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, 87,
90, 91
Philipp II, Duke of Pomerania, 142, 162
Physikalisches Kabinette, 113, 219
Piarists, 8–10
Pighius, Stephanus, 209n44
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
230
INDEX
pilgrimage-related objects, 63, 69–70, 73,
74–75, 137, 140
Pisa, 67, 70, 74, 189, 214n73
Pisanello, Antonio, 86
Pisano, Niccolò, 67, 189
Planzone, Filippo, 172
Plato, ix, 220
Pliny the Elder, 64, 144, 190
Pliny the Younger, 189
Podro, Michael, 4
Pogatscher, Heinrich, 71
poison, antidotes for, 70–71, 89, 169
Poissy, Abbey of, 86
Pollio, Gaius Asinius, 64
Pommerscher Kunstschrank (fig. 80),
162–64, 163, 213n69
porcelain, 89, 131, 131, 154, 170, 172, 176,
183, 186
portrait collections, 74, 104, 142–43, 192,
211n54
Prado Museum, Madrid, 193
Praetorius, Michael, 124
Prague. See Rudolf II’s collections, Prague
Prenner, Anton Joseph von, 155, 157, 158,
213n66
Primaticcio, Francesco, 193
Primisser, Alois, 23–24, 101, 209n44
print collections, 93, 102–4, 120, 144,
208n39
private collections, 87, 154–55, 174–76,
191–96, 208n34, 215n85, 216nn88–89
Prodromus (Stampart and Prenner, figs. 75,
76), 155, 157, 158, 213n66
Prunner’s Cross at Maria Saal, Austria (fig.
2), 68, 68
Purkynĕ, J. E., 25
Pusterich (bellower, fig. 93), 180–81, 181, 184
Pustkuchen, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm, 180
puzzles, 120, 132, 137, 164
Quiccheberg, Samuel von, 23, 29, 143–44
Rabanus Maurus, 146
Raimondi, Marcantonio, 191
Rainer, Paulus, 23–24
Raphael, 146, 191, 193
Raritätenkabinette or Raritätenkammern,
x, 62, 71, 154, 170, 175, 194, 219
Regisole (statue), Pavia, 190
relics, 62, 70, 71, 75–76, 77, 89, 126
reliquaries, 58, 64, 69, 70, 73, 77
reliquary books, 63, 76, 76, 77, 207n24
Renaissance: amateurs, 83, 198, 199; and
Bed of Polykleitos, 146; church interiors,
69, 75, 100; Italian Renaissance, 64,
72, 83, 86, 190–93, 195–96, 199, 205n1;
medals, 142; musical instruments, 112;
northern or German Renaissance, 28,
90–93, 102, 135, 153, 162; Raritätenkammern, 71; renewed appreciation of
art, 28, 30; Spätrenaissance as a historical
period, 1, 28; studiolo, 32, 192, 198
Residenzschloss, Dresden, 149, 150, 212n61
rhinoceros, 71, 106, 169, 171–72, 186, 221
Riccio, Andrea, 131
Richardson, Jonathan, senior and junior,
199, 217n100
Riddarholmskyrkan, Stockholm, 73–74
Riegl, Alois, 2–4, 11, 38n16
Ringstrasse, Vienna, 5–6, 6
Roberti, Ercole de’, 69
Robinet d’Estampes, 82, 84, 89
rococo style, 165
Romantic period, 101, 168, 181, 203
Rome, ancient: Aldrovandi’s guide to
antiquities of, 175; Austrian vestiges of,
9, 67–68, 68, 99; Christian demonization of art from, 68–69; coins or medals,
83–86, 132–35; and exotic animals,
170–71; and Greek antiquities, 63–65;
and Museo Cospiano, 176; public art or
monuments, 64–66, 189–90
Roo, Gerard van, 101, 102, 142
Rosenborg (castle), Copenhagen, 74, 127,
154, 206n17, 213n64
Rosselino, Antonio, 100
Rossi, Properzia de’, 168
Rossini, Gioachino, 25
Rubens, Peter Paul, 96, 149, 158, 198
Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor: Ferdinand II’s collection sold to, 100; Ferdinand II’s family relation to, 94–95, 96;
importance of, as a patron and collector,
29, 144–45, 194; John, Duke of Berry,
compared to, 82, 144; as representative
of northern tastes, 29, 159
Rudolf II’s collections, Prague: automaton
(fig. 67), 148, 149; as “Barnumesque,” 29,
32–33, 147; cabinet of Rudolf II (fig. 51),
127, 129, 164–65; fate of, after Rudolf ’s
death, 146; inventories of, 31, 32, 146,
212n58; magica (fig. 77), 135, 155, 159,
159; and other great Kunstkammern, 93;
paintings (figs. 70, 71), 29, 144–46, 147,
152, 153, 153; vessels (figs. 65, 66), 144, 145
Rumohr, Carl Friedrich von, 181, 201, 221
Russian collecting, 74, 165, 194, 202
Russian icons, 74, 152, 154
Ruysch, Frederik, 170, 221
Sabbioneta, gallery at (fig. 97), 188, 193
Sacken, Eduard Freiherr von, 101, 210n44
Saint-Denis Abbey, 69, 82, 206n13
Saint Elisabeth’s Church, Marburg, 69
Saint James’s Church, Liège, 87
Saint James statuette (fig. 62), 137, 140
Saint Petersburg, 74, 165, 194, 202
Saint Sernin (basilica), Toulouse, 69, 83
saliera (salt cellar by Cellini; fig. 24), 20–21,
101, 105, 106
Sammelwesen, 1, 25, 26–27
Sandrart, Joachim von, 124, 149, 212n60
San Giovanni in Monte (church), Bologna,
69
San Marco (basilica), Venice, 67, 69, 206n17
Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (basilica),
Rome, 69
Santiago de Compostela, 137, 140
Santuario Beata Vergine Maria delle Grazie,
Mantua, 74–75, 75
Saunier, Charles, 202
Savery, Roelandt, 144
Savonarola, Girolamo, 72
Saxl, Fritz, 3
Scaramuccia, Luigi, 199, 217n99
Schatzkammer, Vienna. See Kaiserliche
Schatzkammer, Vienna
Schedel, Hartmann, 90
Scheicher, Elisabeth, 31
Schertlin, Sebastian, 126
Schiller, Friedrich, 25, 59, 220
Schliemann, Heinrich, 61
Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck. See Ambras
collections, Innsbruck
Schlosser, Julius von: awards and titles, 15;
education, 8–12; family background,
6–7; Die Kunstliteratur, 1, 12, 36, 37n5,
50n180; museum work, 9–10, 12–16, 19,
20; Nazi Party membership, 7, 35–36,
41n47, 50n176; photograph of, xii;
prejudices of his time, 34–35; scholarly
contributions of, 1–2, 12, 16, 32, 34;
as university professor, 3, 13–14; and
Vienna School of art history, 2–5, 11. See
also Kunst- und Wunderkammern der
Spätrenaissance, Die
Schlosser, Wilhelm Valentin von, 6
Schloss Salzdahlum, Braunschweig, ix,
150–51
Schnapper, Antoine, ix, 47n154
Schönemann, Johannes, 113
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 197
Schränkchen, x, 135, 135, 164–65, 219
Schrenck von Nozing, Jacob, 44n103, 101,
103, 142
Schweicker, Thomas, calligraphy (fig. 83),
167, 167
Schweinberger, Anton, 145
science: and amusements like automata,
168; vs. belief in magic or marvels, 27,
29, 33, 159–62; France as leading in,
79; and global exploration, 170, 177;
Goethe’s work on evolution, 187, 190;
and Italian collections, 30–31, 174–77,
190; Kunstkammern as detached or
diverging from, 32–34, 159, 172, 187;
Schlosser’s embrace of, 8, 33, 35–36
scientific instruments, 33, 112–13, 112, 159,
162, 176, 186
sculpture collections, 12, 13, 29, 93, 137–41,
147
seashell utensils (fig. 28), 108, 109
Sedlmayr, Hans, 3, 5, 35, 49n173
Segala, Francesco, Portrait of Ferdinand II
(fig. 63), 18, 19, 43n82, 137, 141
Semper, Gottfried, 203
Séroux d’Agincourt, Jean Baptiste Louis
Georges, 201
Settala, Manfredo, 176
Seville Cathedral, 73, 73
Sickel, Theodor von, 12
Siena, 68–69, 72, 190
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
INDEX
Slade, Felix, 199
Sloane, Hans, 200
Smith, Joseph, Consul, 200, 221
“snake tongues” (shark teeth), 70–71, 71,
106, 169
Socrates, 63, 220
Solly, Edward, 199–200
Solomon, King of Israel, 70, 126, 183, 186
Spätrenaissance (late Renaissance), 1, 28
sphragistics (study of seals), 12
Spon, Jacob, 199, 212n60
Sponsel, Jean-Louis, 1, 214n73
Spranger, Bartholomaeus, 144
Squarcione, Francesco, 190
Stallburg, Vienna, 43n85, 155, 194, 213n66
Stampart, Franz van, 155, 157, 158, 213n66
Stephansdom (Saint Stephan’s Cathedral),
Vienna, 72, 72, 75, 76
Storffer, Ferdinand, 155, 156
Strada, Jacopo, 144
Strange, John, 199
Strasbourg Cathedral, 206n17
Strauss, Richard, 5, 9
Strzygowski, Josef, 2–3, 5, 35, 50n173
studiolo, 32, 192, 198
Suger, Abbot of Saint-Denis, 69
Svátek, Josef, 29, 211n58
Sweden, 73–74, 127, 146, 165, 194, 212n58
tabletop (fig. 54), 131, 132
Technische Hochschule (now Technische
Universität), Dresden, 1
technotameion or technicotheca, x, xin8
Teniers, David: Archduke Leopold Wilhelm
in His Gallery at Brussels (fig. 98), 194,
195; inventory of Leopold Wilhelm’s collection, 213n66; and Rudolf II’s picture
gallery, 147
Terzago, Paolo Maria, Museum Septalianum (fig. 91), 176, 177
Terzio, Francesco, 142
Thomas III of Saluzzo, 83
Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista, 196
Tietze, Hans, 10
Tintoretto, Jacopo, 149, 186
Titian, 146, 149
Toledo Cathedral, 73
Tolnay, Charles de, 3
Tommaso da Modena, 201
Torre, Carlo, 175
Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Les
(Limbourg brothers, fig. 12), 84–85, 85
Tschischka, Franz, 72
turned works, 89, 149, 165–67, 166, 176,
186, 218
Turner, J. M. W., 198
Tyrol (territory), 19–20, 135, 141
Tyrolean majolica (figs. 55, 56), 132, 133
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, 193
unicorns, 70, 90, 152, 161–62, 169, 206n17
Universität Wien (University of Vienna), 3,
9, 10, 13–14, 72
Uppsala, 164
Valentini, Michael Bernhard, Museum
Museorum (figs. 79, 95), 149, 151, 154,
161, 183–84, 185, 213n67
Valois, House of, 79–80
Vasari, Giorgio, 142, 168, 191, 192
Vatican, 170, 200
Venice: antependium from Sant’Anna, 186;
bronzes, 130; carved figure of Doge, 118,
119; and Charles IX’s wedding gifts, 105;
Embriachi workshop, 86, 124; English
residents of, 199–200; gondola-shaped
pendant, 136; Murano glassware, 96–97,
126–27, 126; painting exhibitions, 192;
private collections, 193, 215n85; San
Marco (basilica), 67, 69, 206n17; Tesoro
delle gioie published in, 169; unicorn
tusks, 206n17; Venezuela as “Little
Venice,” 177; wax sculptures, 74, 137
Venus statuette (fig. 52), 130, 131
Verona, 174–75, 176
Vesalius, Andreas, 118
Vianen, Paulus van, 149
Vienna School of art history, 2–5, 11
Viennese collections: church treasuries, 72,
75–76; formation of, into modern museums, 201–3; Franz Ferdinand’s collection, 210n47, 215n78; Leopold Wilhelm’s
collections at Stallburg, 43n85, 155, 194,
213n66; Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum,
104, 122, 137; ownership of the Habsburg
collections, 14–16, 20; private collections, 87, 208n34; Schlosser’s influence
on, 3, 12–13; Storffer’s pictorial inventory
of imperial gallery (figs. 73, 74), 155, 156.
See also Hofbibliothek, Vienna; Kaiserliche Schatzkammer, Vienna; Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum, Vienna
Viennese culture, 5–8, 9
Virchi, Girolamo, 111
Virgil, 189
virtuosity, 165–68
Vogelweide, Walther von der, 72
Vos, Cornelis de, 60
Vries, Adriaen de, 144
Vulpius, Christian August, 180, 214n71
Wallace, Richard, 199
Wallenstein, Albrecht von: halberd used in
murder of, 186; horoscope (fig. 38), 113,
117, 210n48
wälsch, 90, 93, 98, 155, 193, 219
Warburg, Aby, 2, 4, 50n176
Wawel Cathedral, Kraków, 9
wax portraiture, 19, 43n82, 74–75, 137, 141,
147, 207n22
weaponry. See arms and armor
Weimar, viii, 113, 147, 149, 165, 180–81, 187,
214n77
Welser, Philippine, 19, 96, 99
Wenceslas, King of Bohemia, 86, 102, 120,
219
Wenceslas Chapel, Prague Cathedral,
209n43
Wenzel von Reinburg, Johann, 186
231
Werdenberg Cup, 106
Westminster Abbey, London, 75, 207n22
Weyden, Rogier van der, 93
Whitehall Palace, London, 198
Wickhoff, Franz, 11–12
Wiener Heiltumbuch (reliquary book, figs.
7, 8), 76, 76, 77
Wiener Musterbuch (model book), ix, 141,
220
Wilczek, Hans, Count, 165
Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria, 93, 94, 96,
112–13, 143
William III, Prince of Orange and King of
England, 197
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 187, 201
Wölfflin, Heinrich, 2, 4, 37n13
Wood, Christopher S., 4–5, 38nn16–17,
50n178, 50n180
World War I, 7, 8
World War II, 3, 40n46, 162
Worm, Ole, Museum Wormianum (fig. 72),
154, 155
writing desk (scrittoio), 135
Wunderkammern: defined, 219; etymology
of Kunst- und Wunderkammern, 22–24;
and German terminology for collections, ix–x; Kunstkammern as distinct
from, 26; as late Renaissance phenomena, 1, 27–28; medieval antecedents of,
69, 87–88; national or ethnic differences
in, 29–30, 32; revival of interest in, 1, 31,
49n162; Roman antecedents of, 64; and
science, 29–30, 33, 159; and technical
virtuosity, 167
Zimmermann, Heinrich, 45n105, 144–46,
208n37, 211n55, 212nn58–59, 213n66, 220
Zimmern, Wilhelm, Count von, 102
Žižka, Jan, 184
Zumbo, Gaetano Giulio, 186
© J. Paul Getty Trust. See additional copyright notices and illustration captions to confirm copyright information for individual texts and images
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